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Timothy Leary
Jail Notes
with an introduction by Allen Ginsbers
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TIMOTHY LEARY
JAIL NOTES
TIMOTHY LEARY
JAIL NOTES
INTRODUCTION BY
ALLEN GINSBERG
GROVE PRESS, INC., NEW YORK
Copyright 1970 by Timothy Leary and the Douglas Book Corporation
"Preface to Dr. Leary's Jail Notes" copyright @ 1970 by Allen Ginsberg
All Rights Reserved
No portion of this book may be reproduced for any reason, by
any means, including any method of photographic reproduction,
without permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70-142526
First Zebra Books Edition, 1972
First Printmg
Manufactured in the United States of America
DESIGNERS: BOB CATO AND IRA FRIEDUVNDER
The photograph on page 118 is by Victor Pilisoff. All other photographs
acquired from the Timothy Leary Archives. Photographers' names unobtainable.
The first section of Allen Ginsberg's introduction appeared originally in The Village
Voice and is reprinted with permission of The Village Voice. Copyright by The
Village Voice, Inc., 1968.
The quotes from Necessary Doubt by Colin Wilson are reprinted with permission
of the author. Necessary Doubt is published by Arthur Barker Limited. Copyright
by Colin Wilson, 1964.
The quote from Venture to the Interior by Laurens Van Der Post is reprinted with
permission of William Morrow and Company, Inc. Copyright 1951 by Laurens
Van Der Post.
The quote from The World of Washington Irving by Van Wyck Brooks is reprinted
with permission of the publisher, E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc. Copyright 1944
1950 by Van Wyck Brooks.
The quotes from The Catholic Encyclopedia are reprinted with permission of the
Catholic University of America. Copyright 1910 by Robert Appleton and Company.
The quote from "In Praise of Johnny Appleseed" by Vachel Lindsay is reprinted
with permission of The Macmillan Company. From Collected Poems by Vachel
Lindsay. Copyright 1923 by the Macmillan Company, renewed 1951 by Elizabeth
C. Lindsay.
The quote from Man and the Stars by Harlan Stetson is reprinted with permission
of the McGraw-Hill Book Company. Copyright 1930 by McGraw-Hill Book Company
Inc.
The quote from 7/Vr?e is reprinted by permission from 7/me, The Weekly News-
magazine. Copyright Time, Inc. 1970.
The quote from "House Burning Down" by Jimi Hendrix is reprinted with permission
of the composer. Copyright 1968 Bella Godiva Music, Inc.
The quote from "Our Love Is Here To Stay" by George and Ira Gershwin is used by
permission of Chappell & Co., Inc. Copyright 1938 by Gershwin Publishing Corp.
Copyright renewed.
Preface to Dr. Leary's Jail Notes
by ALLEN GINSBERG
6
1. JAIL NOTES
16
2. BODYGUARD
118
3. THE FOUR THOUSAND YEAR OLD
ROCK AND ROLL BAND:
A MEMORY EXPERIENCED
130
4. STAR TRIP FOR RO
150
ff What's going on
in his head?
...Well, jail's honed
him down to rib & soul.^^
ALLEN GINSBERG
PREFACE TO DR. LEARY'S JAIL NOTES
By the late '40s of this memory Century the people I knew
best and loved most had already broken thru the crust of
old Reasons & were dowsing for some Supreme Reality, Christ-
mas on Earth Rimbaud said, Second Religiousness according
to Spengler's outline of civilization declining through prolifera-
tion of non-human therefore boring technology; Blake had
called "O Earth O Earth return!" centuries before, echoing the
ancient gnostic prophecy that Whitman spelled out for America
specifically demanding that the Steam-engine "be confronted
and met by at least an equally subtle and tremendous force-
infusion for purposes of spirituallzation, for the pure con-
science, for genuine aesthetics, and for absolute and primal
manliness and womanliness " Ezra Pound's mind jumped to
diagnose the dimming of the world's third Eye: "With Usura
the line grows thick."
One scholar who transmitted Blake's kabbalah, S. Foster
Damon, can remember his sudden vision of tiny flowers car-
peting Harvard Yard violet before World War One, an Image
that lingers over 90 years in mind since his fellow student
Virgil Thomson gave him the cactus Peyote to eat. Damon
concludes that rare beings like Blake are born with physiologic
gift of such vision, continuous or Intermittent. William James,
whose pragmatic magic probably called the Peyote God to
Harvard in the first place, had included shamanistic chemical
visions among the many authentic "Varieties of Religious Ex-
perience." His student Gertrude Stein experimented in altera-
tion of consciousness through mindfulness of language, an
extremely effective Yoga since mechanical reproduction of
language by XX Century had made language the dominant
vehicle of civilized consciousness; her companion Alice B.
Toklas contributed a cookbook recipe for Hashish Brownies to
enlighten those persons over-talkative in drawing rooms un-
aware that "the medium is the message."
This synchronism is exquisite: William S, Burroughs also
once of Harvard shared Miss Stein's mindfulness of the hyp-
notic drug-like power of language, and collaborated on cut-up
rearrangement of stereotyped language forms with friend Brion
Gysin, who had originally given Miss Toklas the recipe for her
famous Brownies. Burroughs among others had begun experi-
ments with drug-shamanism after World War Two for the
author of "Naked Lunch" it was a pragmatic extension of his
Cambridge interest in linguistic Anthropology. That same gnos-
tic impulse broke through to clear consciousness simulta-
neously in many American cities: Gary Snyder realized the
entire universe was alive one daybreak 1948 in Portland when
a flight of birds rose out of the tree stillness in a gully by the
city river, a natural vision The masters of the Berkeley Renais-
sance read Gertrude Stein aloud and practiced Poetic kabbalah
(charming synchronism that psychologist Timothy Leary met
poets Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan in that same 1948 stu-
dent scene) Neal Cassady drove Jack Kerouac to Mexico in
a prophetic automobile to see the physical body of America,
the same Denver Cassady that one decade later drove Ken
Kesey's Kosmos-pattered schoolbus on a Kafka-circus tour
over the roads of the awakening nation And that wakening
began, some say, with the first saxophone cry of the new mode
of black music which shook the walls of white city mind when
Charles Parker lifted his birdflightnoted horn & announced a
new rhythm of thinking, an extended breathing of the body in
music and speech, a new consciousness. For as Plato had
said, "When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the
city shake."
The new consciousness born in these States can be traced
back through old gnostic texts, visions, artists & shamans; it
is the consciousness of our ground nature suppressed & dese-
crated. It was always the secret tale of the tribe in America,
this great scandal of the closing of the doors of perception of
the Naked Human Form Divine. It began with the white murder
of Indian inhabitants of the ground, the theft and later usurious
exploitation of their land, it continued with an assault on all
races and species of Mother Nature herself and concludes
today with total disruption of the ecology of the entire planet.
No wonder black slaves kept for non-human use into this cen-
tury in tear-gassed ghettos of megalopolis were the first Aliens
to sound the horn of Change, the first Strangers to Call the
Great Call through Basilides' many Heavens. Amazing syn-
chronism again, that Mr. Frank Takes Gun, Native American
Church amerindian Peyote Chief, invited the brilliantly talkative
silver-haired psychiatrist who directed a Saskatchewan mental
hospital in the early '40s to participate in a Peyote ritual, and
that the same Dr. Humphrey Osmond having recognized a
wonder of consciousness thus experienced passed on the
catalyst in Mescaline synthetic form to Aldous Huxley; and
that Huxley's 1945 essay on the chemical opening of the Doors
of Perception found its way to the tables of Bickford's Cafeteria
Times Square New York & the couches of Reed College and
Berkeley, where artist persons, having heard the Great Call
of the Negroes, already initiated thertiselves en masse to subtle
gradations of their own consciousness experienced while smok-
jng the same Afric hemp smoked by Charles Parker Thelonious
Monk & Dizzy Gillespie.
Dr. Timothy Leary takes up his part of the tale of the tribe
In a Mexican hut and brings his discovery to Harvard harmoni-
ously and there begins the political battle, black and white
magic become public visible for a generation. Dr. Leary is a
hero of American consciousness. He began as a sophisticated
academician, he encountered discoveries in his field which
confounded him and his own technology, he pursued his
studies where attention commanded, he arrived beyond the
boundaries of public knowledge. One might hesitate to say,
like Socrates, like Galileo? poor Dr. Leary, poor Earth! Yet
here we are in Science Fiction History, in the age of Hydrogen
Bomb Apocalypse, the very Kali Yuga wherein man's stupidity
so overwhelms the planet that ecological catastrophe begins
to rehearse old tribe-tales of Karmaic retribution. Fire & Flood
& Armageddon Impending.
It would be natural (in fact deja vu) that the very technology
stereotyping our consciousness & desensitizing our percep-
tions should throw up its own antidote, an antidote synthetic
such as LSD synchronous with mythic tribal Soma & Peyote.
Given such historic Comedy, who could emerge from Harvard
technology but one and only Dr. Leary, a respectable human
being, a worldly man faced with the task of a Messiah. Inevi-
table! Not merely because the whole field of mental psychology
as a "science" had arrived at biochemistry anyway. It was
Inevitable because the whole professional civilized world, like
Dr. Leary, was already faced with the Messianic task of acceler-
ated evolution (i. e., psychosocial Revolution) including an alter-
ation of human consciousness leading to the immediate muta-
tion of social & economic forms. This staggering realization,
psychedelic, 1. e., consciousness expanding & mind-manifesting
in itself, without the use of chemical catalysts, is now forced on
all of us by images of our own unconscious rising from the
streets of Chicago, where city teargas was dumped on Christ's
very Cross in Lincoln Park AD 1968. The drains are backing
up in the cities, smog noise and physiologic poison in food
turn us to insect acts, overpopulation crazes the planet, our
lakes corrupt, old riverways become dank fens, tanks enter
Prague and Chicago streets simultaneous, Police State arrives
in every major city, starvation wastes African provinces, Chi-
nese genocide in Tibet mirrors American genocide in Vietnam,
Alarm! Alarm! howls deep as any Biblic prophecy.
Ourselves caught in the giant machine are conditioned to its
terms, only holy vision or technological catastrophe or revolu-
tion break "the mind-forg'd manacles." Given one by-product
of the technology that might, as it were by feed-back, correct
the berserk machine and liberate the inventor's mind from
captivity by hypnotic robots, Dr. Leary had in LSD an invaluable
civilized elixir. For, as Dr. Jiri Roubichek observed early in
Prague ("Artificial Psychosis," 1958), "LSD inhibits conditioned
reflexes." And this single phrase, for rational men, might be
the key to the whole gnostic mystery of LSD and Dr. Leary's
role as unique, alas solitary, courageous, humane & frank
Democratic Boddhisatva-teacher of the uses of LSD in America.
For he took on himself the noble task of announcing the evi-
dence of his senses despite the scary contumely of fellow acad-
emicians, the dispraising timorous irony of scientific "pro-
fessionals," the stupidity meanness self-serving cowardice and
hollow vanity of bureaucratic personnel from Harvard Yard to
Mexico City to Washington, from the ignorant Sheriff's office
in Dutchess County NY to the inner greedy sanctums of the
US Treasury Department in D. C, our whole "establishment"
of civilization that defends us from knowledge of our own
unconscious by means of policemen's clubs, and would resist
the liberation of our minds and bodies by any brutish means
available including teargas, napalm & the Hydrogen Bomb.
Dr. Leary conducted himself fairly & equitably, given the
extremity of his knowledge; it took an innocent courage to
explore his own unconditioned consciousness, to take LSD and
other chemicals often enough to be well balanced in praxis
as well as explanation, and to attempt to wed the enormity of
his experience to Reason. An heroic attempt to communicate
clearly and openly through civilized technologic media to his
fellow citizens, despite centuries of identity brainwash accel-
erated now to mass paranoia and Cold War Apocalypse, re-
quired of Dr. Leary the proverbial wisdom of serpent & harm-
lessness of dove.
Timothy Leary tells the tale of his tribe in book aptly titled
The Politics of Ecstasy, & events enlarged since he wrote
his book and chose its title charge the author's handiwork
with prophetic enormity. The battle of generations that erupted
in 1968 simultaneously in Prague, Chicago, Mexico City, Paris,
New York (and Moscow underground) everywhere the State's
electronic consciousness is interlinked transcended antique
battles of Cold War and Race. We witness planetary confronta-
tion wherein controlling Elders trapped in a suicidal mechan-
ical consciousness deploy their destructive technology against
their own children in the streets of their own cities. Tis Blake's
10
Urizen tormenting tender Los in Eternity! New generations
have risen spontaneous with new consciousness and a mutant
politics of flower power that is rooted in the ground of human
consciousness itself: an acceptance of human identity as one
with living nature on a living planet where all creatures are
living God. The public philosophies and technologies of all
civilized Governments at present are at war with this God,
and the planet itself is within decades of destruction. No won-
der there is sudden appearance of Adamic hair. Eve walks
naked in the streets; ancient body-rhythms beat out thru the
airwaves in electric mantric Rock from Bratislava to San Fran-
cisco, & youths ingest shamanic elixirs to recover conscious-
ness of planetary Archtypes. Hare Krishna!
One politic synchronism that concerns this text should be
gossiped forth contextual. Timothy Leary quit public life to
write a book in Mexico some years ago but he was searched
by Agents of Government as he went to cross borders, arrested
for possession of some herb, and thus forced to interrupt his
writing, returned to public action, and defend his person from
attack by the State. So he traveled to academies and lectured
to the young, & thus he paid large legal fees required by the
State & thus maintained an Ashram of fellow seekers well
known in Millbrook. Agents of Government then raided and
repeatedly abused the Millbrook Utopia, whereupon Dr. Leary
was obliged to be Dr. Leary and lecture more to raise money
for his family of imprisoned friends. Agents of Government
concluded this phase of prosecution with a piece of Socratic
irony so blatantly echoing an old Greek injustice that the
vulgar rhetoric of a Tyrannous State would need only be
quoted to be recognized, were it not for the fact that these
States are by now so plagued with Tyrannously inspired chaos
and public communication so flooded with images of State
Atrocity from the alleys of Saigon to the parks of Chicago that
official public conscience here now, as memorably in Russia
and Germany, is shocked, dumbed & amnesiac. I quote from
the Spring 1968 State Document in any case for the delectation
of gnostic Cognoscenti, that is to say myriads of the present
young: ,
"To Hon. Edw. W. Wadsworth
Clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
Room 408 400 Royal Street
New Orleans, La. 70130
"Re: No. 23570
Timothy Leary
Vs United States of America
". . . We are applying for an order from the District Court
requiring the Defendant to surrender to the United States
Marshal . . .
'The appellant continues his publicized activities involving
the advocacy of the use of psychedelic drugs by students and
others of immature judgment and tender years and is regarded
as a menace to the community so long as he is at large . . .
Very truly yours,
Morton L. Sussman
United States Attorney
By: James R. Gough
Asst. U.S. ATTY.
Chief, Appeals Research Division"
Thus requesting revocation of Dr. Leary's bail'd liberty while
his political-religious defense for possession of an herb ap-
proached Supreme Court, Agents of Government checked
further conversation with the young. The Millbrook Ashram
having been simultaneously dispersed by Agents of Govern-
ment, his immediate financial responsibilities lightened, Tim-
othy Leary retired back home to Berkeley with his mate and
completed his description of The Politics of Ecstasy.
A twin book, High Priest, was also finished during this period
of relative freedom 1968; in High Priest Dr. Leary composed
letters anecdotes conversations and personal letters together
into a number of chapters concerning friends and colleagues
in worlds of science and art, & presented his history of con-
sciousness-altering drug Fate in the course of a decade's offi-
cial and unofficial experiments from Mexico thru Harvard thru
Millbrook. His prose by now more supple than before, the
book's collage structure contains generous exegesis of the
persons and events of a psychedelic brotherhood and scienti-
fic confreres that altered the consciousness of that American
decade.
Next year his legal appeal reached the Supreme Court, in
May 1969 the Law under which he was arrested was ruled
unconstitutional. Government attack on his person continued,
& Dr. Leary was arrested and subsequently tried, convicted
and sentenced to ten years without appeal bail by Judge Byron
McMillan of Orange County for possession of two marijuana
cigarette stubs planted in his car ashtray by a California police-
man. Federal authorities meanwhile chose to retry Dr. Leary
on his Laredo arrest on another technicality, this time not for
12
failure to report natural grass for government tax, but on the
charge of "transporting" a smidgeon of marijuana the few
hundred yeards from the middle of the International Bridge
to the Customs Shed where he had been detained years earlier.
Convicted in Texas trial, Judge Ben Connally sentenced our
philosopher to ten years also; both sentences set consecu-
tively, bail denied, Dr. Leary at time of present writing has been
jailed in California since February 19, 1970. Terminology of
both judges agreed with government lawyers' boorish language
that Dr. Leary was a "menace to the community." Bail denial
was successfully appealed in the Texas case, and as of August
7, 1970 bail will (perhaps) be granted by some Supreme Court
for California despite United States Attorneys obnoxious plea
that our philosopher "represents a danger to other persons
and to the community."*
The text of United States of America, Appellee's OPPOSI-
TION TO APPLICATION FOR BAIL PENDING APPEAL con-
tained the following hideous paragraph II (e) "Attached hereto
as Exhibit D-1 is a copy of an article purportedly authored by
Timothy Leary in Playboy magazine in which he discussed
the facts giving rise to the case at bar, and which bears also
upon his aims and activities which are the basis for the Gov-
ernment's opposition to his release on bail." Further docu-
ments appended included Dr. Leary's pacifist testimony at
the celebrated Chicago Conspiracy trial, & news reports of
various university lectures including one at Ann Arbor, Michi-
gan early 1970 whereat Dr. Leary discoursed to raise funds
for legal appeals for the poet John Sinclair also jailed for
several decades and denied appeal bail after conviction a
year earlier for having been entrapped by a local bearded
agent who'd infiltrated the Detroit Artist's Workshop. Another
disgusting document appended was a secret agent's report to
the Laguna Beach Police Department "concerning additional
suspects involved in the BROTHERHOOD OF RELIGIOUS
LOVE. Refer to attached report for additional details."
Such a hexed country! "Judge McMillan labeled Leary an
insidious and detrimental influence on society," quoth L.A.
Times February 20, 1970, and "a pleasure seeking, irrespon-
sible Madison Avenue advocate of the free use of LSD," quoth
Long Beacti Press March 17 same year.
Suffering armed fools cheerfully, Dr. Leary's made an exquis-
ite religious covenant in jail. "Imprinting" as ontological key Is
*Bail was not granted. Dr. Leary left San Luis Obispo jail months later, on
his own initiative. A.G.
13
suggested, & re-imprinting via Biological mouth-intake (food
chemistry) is proposed as proper philosophic action. Hardly
an affair of State were we only to know State in theory.
Leary's jail texts economically define use and role of LSD;
here's formal psychological discussion of character-alteration
by means of insight-creating drugs, such discussion related to
Socrates' discussion at deathbed & texts on Catholic Hell
Punishment, these juxtaposed with Judiciary reality of Jail
society; all accomplished in professional manner with saintly
aplomb.
What's going on in his head? Day to day observation of
Heavy Metal Fix the inside facts of jail compassionate
shrewd analysis of Manson as jail-conditioned soul. A few
gists & piths: "Psychopharmacology plus bio-rhythmic se-
quential analysis Alchemy & Astrology." Dr. Leary's notes
include disquisitions on Hell from Church Fathers paralleled
with prison weather, as if prison were. that Hell spoken of old
incarnate now in minds of State Judge & Jailers thoughts In-
terleaved with quotations from official rejection letters in
legalese why some of his messages and letters aren't mailed
thru jail walls. Dr. Leary touches a few political nerves J. E.
Hoover "a 75 year old bachelor virgin." (Actually, Sir Tim and
Anyone, Hoover, an ear-voyeur, had tapes of M. L. King, tapes
of a "wild party." King was afraid Hoover'd "do something
foolish & play It In public." He did, to newsmen and various
lawmakers and wire service folk no one was interested in
his tired blackmail Invasion of privacy anyway.)
Dr. Leary's Jail Notes make a science fiction classic, Orwell
come true. As Neal Cassady also'd spent 2 years in San
Quentin a decade earlier, entrapped by shifty Narcotics Agents
for a joint.
An answer to this tough problem of human aggression? Med-
icine, 3 lumps hashish daily quiet 75% of Aggressiveness. This
fact courtesy U.S. Arms Control Disarmament experiments
Princeton 1970.
Dr. Leary's in jail for theory and practice of research on
LSD & Cannabis. A shame on Harvard, on the Academics of
America, & on the State. "His prophecies," like those of Hip-
pocrates he paraphrases, "and his techniques with potions,
if become widespread, would totally free each individual from
State control and make possible complete liberty of conscious-
ness." And the blessings of Sri Krishna Prem on you!
Dr. Leary has taken the burden of giving honest report of
LSD & Cannabis In terms more accurate & harmless than the
faked science of the Government Party Hacks & therefore his
14
imprisonment is an act of insult to Science, Liberty, Common
Sense, Freedom, Academy, Philosophy, Medicine, Psychology
as an Art, and Poetry as a tradition of human mind-vision.
Well, jail's honed him down to rib & soul.
November, 1968 and August, 1970
15
JAIL NOTES
f f Barking with pleasure
to see famed wild
captive. Blacks shout,
'Hey Tim.
We gotta talk to you.^^
r^ebruary 25 70 Orange County
Is there a library here?
No. Books are contraband.
No books!
Well there are some floating around. They circulate round
a tier then disappear.
Magazines?
Yeah. They come into the office but the guards rip them off
and take them home.
Are there any books on our tier?
Yeah. Three.
In dark of night detective story smuggled me. Read twice
next day.
What's the second book?
A Burnt Out Case by Graham Greene. Read it five times.
Marveling that this rare vessel of sensitive Intelligence should
find its way into metal maze labyrinth.
Where the third book?
In dark of night receive T/ie Confessions of St. Augustine.
Rock breaking laborous reading. Unpleasant Portnoy's Com-
pliance. St. Monica original Jewish mother. Follows her
naughty lover boy from Africa to Middle East. Pragging and
paying for him. St. Gus finally gets to be a doctor. Good gov-
ernment job lived happily forever and ever and ever and
afterward with Mom. In heaven with Mother. SnItch-fink.
In next tier dwealth roly-poly middle-jowled businessman.
Baby raper. Caught giving head to his daughty naughter. He's
got books. He's always first in line for chow.
I ear you got some books.
Eyes narrow bargain tastement. Yeah. Whatta you got to
swap? Swap? I just want to borrow a book or two for a day or
three. Well I don't loan books. There mine. I swap or sell them.
Oh you so greedy. How do you get to own them.
He slide me an Orange County you must be some kind of
Communist or nut look. Never mind how I got them. What you
got to swap? I got some good ones. '
Genesis of capitalism. Gods goods flow easily among care-
free natives until some clever jowly, first-in-line-chow-belly
child molester starts hoarding, creates artificial shortage, stops
free flow and we're in business. Property. Why books? Because
there's little else to hoard.
Someone gives me some hash and I spend afternoon on
bunk meditating. Farenheit 451 come true. I knew we shouldn't
see such movies. Spooky reel cans. Ontological diddling.
Create-a-state of reality. Outside, these men scorn books. Here
they become currency. Books forbidden. Hunger for written
word.
There's one book they allow us to have.
Oh yeah. Gimme. Gimme. Gimme. What it is?
The bible.
Pre-evil forests of Canada levelled. Crackly ocean of word
paper inundate continent. Science-fiction fascist state declare
books contraband. Only one book left. One cup of words.
The bible.
The movie you are now in produced by Salvation Army,
directed by Billy Graham. Entitled The Wages of Gideon's
Revenge. Down on your nease boy. See who has the power
now. Repent sinner. If you were marooned on a desert island
what book would you ask for?
Do you want the bible?
No.
Sit locked in metal box, four foot wide, twelve foot long,
ten foot high. Arrange mattress so it cushion metal stool. Place
yellow legal pad on metal shelf and start writing.
in the beginning there was half a twin-soul in a self in a
cell and the pen-celled words came writefully.
For nine relays and wrights by murky pale shadow glow
sharpening pencil with razor blade held in match cardboard
wrote story of jailhouse and then detailed plan for overthrowing
the government of the United States right now. Blueprint for
children's revolt.
Smoking cigarettes writing in new, careful legible script,
eating candy bars, when hand cramp look at pale face in
mirror, yoga, fall-a-bed, eat meals.
Reading books is strictly contrascated but writing books is
worse. Must hide a peek under bed. Wait for lawyer smuggle
out.
In the midnite electric amplified night-blare LEARY N-6 ON
THE LINE FULL JAIL ISSUE YOU GOTTA VISITOR. IT'S YOUR
LAWYER TAKE YOUR LEGAL PAPERS Sleep walk down es-
calator with yellow legal pad. Chula waits casual debonair.
When guard turns nods and takes the papers. Whew! There!
Science-fiction Meladreamer. Smuggling words out of prison.
Next week lawyers return. Give me typewritten copies of
manuscripts. Read your proof. Tuck inside yellow legal pad
and happy levitate moving stairs to cell block. Bouncing mer-
rily past guard station Sergeant radar glance. YOU THERE
HALT. Come lumbering out of glass booth fat ass khaki lad.
WHAT YEW GOT THERE.
18
Well Sergeant just lawyer seen litigation ^constitution re-
appraising appeal brief foundation liberation documentation.
Sergeant frowning. LEMME SEE THAT.
When Major Andre was searched the plans for the betrayal
of West Point were found in his boots. Why Sergeant I just
happen to have nothing that will interest you. Just a little article
exposing conditions in the jail plus a little piece on the over-
throw of the government with acidulous pen portraits of Presi-
dent, the Vice President, and the Attorney General of the United
States of America, otherwise known as the Nation's Top Cop.
Sergeant frowning, lips moving as he reads.
It's all legal material attorney donation mandamus nihil
obstat imprimatur preparation ratification of my case. Now
I'll take it if you please returney comes back soon to cell I go.
ARE YOU PRO PER?
Well In the broader extra-juridictlonal sense, Sergeant, I
am preparing my own case, indeed, tis true of all when comes
the judgment of the higher court beyond help of private counsel
or public defender appointed by the solicitous state. However,
actually, I am not pro per.
WELL I'LL HAVE TO LOOK THESE OVER AND CALL THE
CAPTAIN. GO TO YOUR CELL AND I'LL BE BY TO SEE YOU.
Back on bunk lying stoned laughing groan. I hate Grade B
movies. Where my karmic contract? This time round I signed
up for forest nature Noble Dionysian. It was clearly understood:
no more Humphrey Bogart. What will thits do now? Imagine
jail officials clustered round desk. Why Gentlemen this is
nothing less than an insidious, subversive, treasonous incite-
ment of widescale treacherous assault of children on their
parents which we have luckily diligence of agents intercepted
Inspector, yes the chief will be pleased we caught this in the
bud strictest surveillance not happen again smuggling docu-
ments out of escape proof jail indictment.
Heavy footsteps on the tier. Sergeant blunky form at bars.
LEARY I BEEN READING THESE PAPERS. I DUNNO IT SEEMS
TO ME THESE ARE STORIES, YES SIR, STORIES YOU ARE
WRITING. HOW YOU GET A TYPEWRITER IN HERE?
Looks suspiciously around cell. OR ELSE YOU WROTE
THEM AND HAD THEM TYPED OUTSIDE AND THEN
BROUGHT IN FOR YOU TO CORRECT.
I look him amaze. Pardon me, but my space ship just arrived
here. Take a day or two to adapt. Atmospheric pressure, you
know. Mild disorientation familiar to all galactic travelers. Now
if you'll give me my papers I can get back to business.
I'M GOING TO PUT THESE PAPERS IN YOUR PERSONAL
PROPERTY. THEY WILL BE SEALED THERE AND YOU GET
19
THEM WHEN YOU LEAVE. AND I DONE WANT NO MORE
WRITING SENT OUT OF THIS JAIL. GAINST RULES AND
REGULATIONS.
Heels drum down concrete walk and outside hear the ham-
mering of scaffold and dogs howling and murmur of the angry
crowd and the women wailing.
Eli Eli lama sabachthani.
Which translated from the Aramaic means: Some of these
people around here seem to forget that its just a movie we're
making for fun and they are the ones with the spears. Get me
out of here. My woman's waiting home.
20
March 18 70 Orange County/Ghino
At four-thirty right first after breakfast fueling travel orders
klaxon.
LEARY, N-6. ROLL UP YOUR GEAR.
This now count-down moment devolution. Mutate jailee
prisonee. Ghino Ghain Ghang. Take down down escalator to
abasement holding tank. Strip off county wrappings. Slip on
on (last time?) mod flannel London karma suitra.
Property window personal items contaminated with intimate
baraka sealed sanitary plastic bags. Khaki holding bag. Squint.
Laugh. "Hey Doc. Is it true you are writing a book about us?"
Greeding outside sheet of confiscated manuscript. Pleasure
roar recognizing Orange Gounty Jail jargon.
"No arristofer. Is this proper procedure for you-it be greed-
ing me intimate illegal documentaries? You-lt can read maya
book when comes out imprint."
"I'll never get to see it." Said the Roman soldier resignedly.
"You'll find a complementary copy next to your motel bed,"
yo said.
Thits store corps special insolation holding tank. Few
minutes bring beefy, square-trimmed thirty old steer. "You
guys are supposed to be in protective custody. I'll leave you
alone If you promise not to harm each other."
Us eyes pledge truce.
Across room in other pen blossom tall beautiful boy in lotus
pose.
Armours guards and rusty trustees wound round asking
Harvard questions.
"This prison system isn't good but It's the best we have."
Hippie flow over. Just wrapping up year at Gounty Farm.
Radiate sunshine. "The only thing tu miss here is sex, music,
and dope."
"Thanks a lot." Nu laugh.
Pen partner mysterious. Thits keep him special insolation.
Sterilived hospital cell. Him crime true heinous to tell. Him me
puzzle. Not wild animal. Stolid domestication. White collar
crime? Right collar crime?
Handcuffed wristly together nu file on bus.
21
Him tolled me shocked for paranoid schizophrenia when
Korean War.
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTION FOR DEMALE-ING, CHINO,
CALIFORNIA
ADULT PROCESS IN-CASED ARRIVALS CONT'D
Q 26357 LARNER, Ronnie Russ
Crime: Robb 1st (211 P C)
Sentence: 6 mos-Life (Per 1202b PC)
County: Orange
Q 26358 LEARY, Timothy Francis
Crime: Poss IVIari 11530 H & S
Sentence: 6 mos-10
County: Orange
Raw material reception room. In migrants. Degenesis. Strip
naked. Its Adam shame your here. Throw away every personal
except clothes to male home, collect within fifteen days else
donate to Salivating Army. Body inspection. Run hands through
hair. Tote ears. Open mouth. Wag tongue. Lift male mail bags.
Turn around. Spread buttocks. Life right foot. Life left foot.
Take shower. Dress prison uniform.
This experience is treated under eight headings: I. Name and Place of Hell;
II. Existence of Hell; III. Eternity of Hell; IV. Impenitence of the Damned;
V. Poena Damni; VI. Poena Sensus; VII. Accidental Pains of the Damned;
VIII. Characteristics of the Pains of Hell.
Tall black in blue dance over. "Hey Tim. Psychedelic Tommy,
they call me." Hands maya ten hand-rolled Bugler cigarettes.
Rumor mills. Orders. Me put in hole. Isolation lock-up. Ship
to Vacaville. Captain wants to talk to you.
Sergeant hairlines inspection. Shave hair souls. Ordered to
barber. Last mirror glimpse of forest hair and mountain mus-
tache. "Leaf as branch as you can," suggest barber. Grunts
and clips. Mirror eye see strange high-headed youth. "Don't
complain, man, you look twenty years younger."
Pick up sheets and blankets following sergeant to soulitary
insolation. Bad boy lock up for you. Walk by zoo cages. Nasty
mean animals raise up sullen heads. Barking with pleasure to
see famed wild captive. Blacks shout, "Hey Tim. We gotta
talk to you."
Locked in cages nu can't see each other. Just animal cries.
Brass nassy Brooklyn voice denounce me. "OOOH. He's that
mad bad doctor get all de kids take dope. They should hang
him." Blacks trombone back: "You outa yo Motherfucking
mine, Shoaty. He's freedom fighter."
22
Shorty's voice befriendly. "Hey Doc. Look at dese pictures."
Hand appears corner of cell with color snapshots. Sad-eyed
blue wife. Clear-eyed pink kids.
Shorty shouts: "Hey Doc. Here's the record of my trial.
Read it."
Shorty shouts: "Hey Doc. You want some cigarettes?"
Shorty shouts: "Hey Doc. You need stamped envelopes?"
Shorty shouts: "Hey Doc. You wanna Playboy magazine?"
In-prudent. In-presario.
In-, prefix. 1, In, on. 2. Denoting negation, as in-firm. Before
"b" and "p" the "n" changes to "m," as im prudent.
In accurate
In accessible
In action
In adequate
In admissible
I. Name and Place of Hell: The term "hell" is cognate to "hole" (cavern) and
"hollow." Hell denotes a dark and hidden place.
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: INCOMPLETE ENVELOPE FLAP
Dinner passed through slot in bars. Then began evening's
intertainment. Blacks using mirrors to catch setting sun. Re-
flecting birds of light against tier wall. "Hey Doc. Look." They
are playing sunshine tag racing reflected spots of light along
wall. Laughing shouts. In-perturbable.
P 47327 BRUNO, Manuel Sanchez
Crime: Wilful Abuse of Child/273 a PC
Sentence: 6mo-10
Judge: P. P. Slaughter
DA: E. J. Younger: PD: CJ
What does PD mean? Public defender.
What is a public defender?
Opposite of private defender.
Twi-light. Hour of romance. A young tan. lady named Sandy
coos out soft message. Black organ-voices rumble back.
"You there Sandy. You tender cunt you. Oh what I'm gonna
do to you girl. I got me twenty-seven inches here for you."
Shy seductive pun. "Oh no, big boy. I'se my own girl from
now on. No more marriage for me. I'se a free pussy."
"Great God A'mighty I gotta get some sweet, red asshole!
Ah'm sick to death of my own right hand. Whoooeeee! Here I
23
come Sandy. I'll skin you soft brown ass, girl. Oh! Oh! What
I'm gonna do to you, sister. I'm gonna split you velvet asshole,
girl. Gonna stuff mah tool up you belly. Split you kidneys, girl.
Pen-ay-trate yo guts, little girl. Ah'm gonna get you, baby, so
you never gonna walk again. Great God Ah Mighty, cunt, I'se
yo man."
Silence on the tier, Sandy soft cunning voice, in-breath.
"Oh mister Guard. Let that man out. Oh yes, let him loose, I
needs that man."
Roaring laughter sweeps three storey 300 house. Eighty
males poke red heads through cell bars digging bawdy action.
Like love play everywhere, fierce pulsing action peaks sub-
sides. Silence fills hall. Letter writing Rosemary. Shorty's
raucous gutter voice: "Hey Doc! Look out." Cackling laughter.
Head to bars I look down tier at fire blazing on floor flames
six feet high leap up burn sheets, blankets, discarded clothes.
Wild screams. Pleasured rage echo through metal hall.
"Yay man, Burn Mudderfucking joint down! Yay man! Burn
to ground. Pour it on."
Momentary reflex fear trapped in cell holocaust calmed by
cement steel inflammable maximum security.
P 57328 WHITE, Frank Luther
Crime: Robb 1st
Sentence: 5-life
Judge: R.M. Dales
D.A.: E.J. Younger; PD: CJ
What does CJ mean?
Convicted by jury. Jury of his peers.
One angry Black pyro-phobic voice protest fire is howled
down. Incendiary quarrel between two African powers. "Why
you shit-face, Motherfuckin^g sissy Nigger, we burn down this
establishment, you stay out of this, yo hear."
"Yay bo." Mocking.
"You miserable Motherfucker, I'm going to get you. You's
dead you MotherfuckIng fool. I get out of this cell tomorrow,
I'se going to whip you ass so hard you die. Die, Motherfucker!
You hear me?"
"Yay bo." Mocking. "You scare me."
"Done you 'yay bo' me you Motherfucker. I'se going to get
you dead, Motherfucker. What you name?"
"My name Is Shackleforth, baby."
"Well you po fool, Shackleforth, you dead. Dead, Mother-
fucker. I got Brothers in every joint in this state, MotherfuckIng
24
fool, and we going to kill you." Tiger blood blind rage red bull
gore baritone rage.
"Ooooh! I'se frightened."
Like hate play everywhere, fire dies down dead leaving
heavy damp-rag, penetrating smoke. Caution: May be dan-
gerous to your health. Guards march in, rip off two cells on
each deck front of fire. Roll up to hole, snarling innocence
bitterly. In-sendiary.
Smog smudge atmosphere. Silence settles duskly.
"Hey Doc!" Comic Shorty calling.
"Yeah, Shorty."
"How you like prison?" Shorty laugh.
Besides Hades and Gehenna, we find in the New Testament many other
names for the abode of the damned. "Abyss." "Place of Torments." "Ex-
terior darkness." "Storm of darkness."
P 67372 BRUNO, Jose E.
Crime: Rec'd for Diagnosis/ 1203.03 PC
Sentence: 90 Day Placement (Atmpt Mur & ADW on
Peace Officer)
Judge: T. T. Negan
D.A.: J. Twitchell: PD:
What does ADW mean?
Assault with deadly weapon.
What does peace officer mean?
Cop.
25
March 20 70 Chino
Rosemary's horoscope for year:
"The expansive planet of Jupiter will bring some strange
events into your life this year. Unfortunately, while some people
thrive on changes, Taureans are more conservative and you
may resent the fact that they are forced upon you, even though
they can only improve your life, your standard of living, and
your general outlook. If you are married you can rely on those
closest to you desiring to help you with your new responsibili-
ties. Finances will be less restricted, but try to consolidate
them until the end of the year when you will be able to take
a long-dreamed-of vacation."
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR REASON(s) CHECKED
BELOW: YOU ARE PERMITTED TO WRITE ON ONE (1) SHEET
OF PAPER, USING BOTH SIDES. THIS LETTER IS IN EXCESS
THEREOF.
P 77327 BLACK, Bryon Willie
Crime: Poss Mari (Rob Rev) 11530 H & S
Sentence: 6mo-10
Judge: T. Hanslinger
D.A. i.M. Downs: PD: CC
What does H and S mean?
Health and Safety. This grassy wicked has broken the H & S
law.
Twi-light mating calls: "You Sandy. You need a Motherfuck-
ing Bull on top your ass. You nothing but a hundred dollar
night hoe. Oh girl, when I catch holt of you. I'm five inches
wide. Dey gonna get me for man slaughter."
"Woman slaughter, baby," whisper reply.
Sweet little alcoholic thief look me admiration. "My wife
and my kids never do anything together. You smoke marijuana
with your family."
"Ooooh, you girl Sandy! I gotta have you. You and me all
the way, little lady." He rattle bars berserk gorilla. Huge tier
clang with sexual hunger.
26
"I've been here two years. It's the physical contact you miss.
Soft flesh. The physical contact."
Everyone here for essence flaw. True, everyone in outside
world nurses him karmic mistake. Everyman life center around
seek-curit genetic wound. But here shame is public. Lust.
Anger. Heroin. Gluttony. Thievery. Pride. Rape. Greed. Murder.
Covetousness. Child molesting. What's your beef? What's
him beef?
"Hey Doc. Why are you here?"
Pride, I think.
Old grey haired Black interrupts, laughing. "He here cause
he shoot his big mouth off too much."
P 87327 BRUNO, Vincent Lopez
Crime: Rec'd for Diagnosis /1 203.03
Sentence: 90 Day Placement (Poss Firearm by Ex-
Felon)
Judge: J. Twitchell
D.A.: J. Edgar: PD:
Letter from a Taurean Poet
Dr. Tim and I strolled in the sun today . . . and talked . . .
and he is an unusually meaningful companion to have here at
the "bottom of falling" . . . Astrological nomenclature ... (I
think perhaps you felt somewhat condescending, your wife
being a Taurus and all . . .) n' me and my hypothesis of a cor-
relation between the I Ching and the signs, eventually wrap-
ping it all up in "karma paper," so that for a few moments I
really felt quite "found!"
Couldn't avoid noticing the coterie of persons that would
occasionally come around as we walked . . . some of them
wanting so much to ask you "how?" . . . probably seeking
some directed guarantee . . . and I hope that you will reject
no one here, because you may be the breath that many of us
require, in fact I remember silently searching for the candor
to mention this, but then you'd smile with a nectar of love
and wisdom and surcease, and it became obvious to me how
innocently beautiful nirvana is on a physical plane.
I must tell you that I felt a certain amount of concern that
the system acolytes have used you for a* political catharsis,
cleansing their own hypocrisy, and attempting to displace your
sane vitality by removing your presence from the reach of
many upraised hands . . . However now I think that you are
absolutely adaptable . . . like feathers in the wind . . .
Peace on your journey North, and of course the blessing
of Tao for all that you will do. I am pleased for having been
that much closer to "warm."
27
P 97327 WHITE, Gary Williams
Crime: RSP 7496 PC
Sentence: 6mo-10
Judge: W. Anger
DA: F. Angnew: PD: CC
What does RSP mean?
Receiving Stolen Property.
Property. Property. Property. Property
The old philosopher Zweig is talking:
"Let us forget Nietzsche and all his books, and concentrate on this new
phenomenon, that Nietzsche was one of the first to observe. It is this: for
the first time in history, men are beginning to feel stifled by their own
humanity. Most of the great artists and writers of the nineteenth century
are men who feel themselves trapped in their own limitations. They are all
stifled by human weakness. And yet at the very time when some men are
fighting to get free of this weakness, others are basing their art on the
concept of weakness, of human defeat. This is the one clear fact that
stands out of our cultural history. One class of men wants freedom; the
other builds an ethic of negation. So. . . what does this indicate? Surely
that man Is preparing for a new evolutionary leap?" Necessary Doubt,
Colin Wilson
28
March 21 70 Chino
Old shaven grey head dormous furry tattered tale me story
walking back to cell. In San Diego County Jail dired dungeon
books illegal contraband. Hippie saint smuggle copy Upan-
Ishads past from cell to cell. Him self writ nine Upanishads
by hand on yellow legal sheets. "I thought, perhaps, you'd
like to read them."
He gift me after dinner sunset bunk reading Katha Upan-
ishad remembering past time reading Katha Upanishad in
foothills Himalayas. Friendly Indian army officer chauffered
jeep thrifty miles past Almora parked by side road. Foot step
hour up terraced hills. Look upcross valley see domes of
Krishna temple.
Ashram of Sri Krishna Prem. Forty years ago young hand-
some Oxford philosopher pilgrims India researching lumination.
Hunting guru spoor up Ganges. Sun shone bright at monastery
of Sri Ramana Marharshi who sat 90 millions whiles away
impersonal as sun radiating equally to every upturned face.
Seeking higher lasers edge wanders to Lucknow teaching Uni-
versity. Rhadha wife of the Chairman of the Department of Illu-
mination devotee of Krishna, laughing, dancing God of love.
Love of her love of Krishna's love for him Rhadha and the
Englishman now Sri Krishna Prem leave Lucknow and found
Ashram in fardistant Kumaon Hills some thirty-soot hours from
Delhi by rail and bus to Almora then thirsty mile further by
foot high on ridge two build the temple of Love God.
Sri Krishna Prem wrote (as every student of the path must
write) his commentary on the Gita and additional labor love a
thin deep book on Katha. A pious but practical Brahmin
Vajasravasa gives as sacrifice ownly old, barren, milkless cows.
His son Naciketas (youth revolting protests) proposes that his
Father offer him to priests. In anger Father says I awe for
you to Yama, God of Death. Walking to temple through fields
irrigated, fruittrees, smallawn two storey monkhouse terrace
overlooking vallles north to Tibet south to Almora. Place void
we stand awhiling. When Naciketas reached the House of
Yama God was absent. For three days waited meditation. When
God of Death returned his servants said, Oh Lord this young
29
Brahman has waited three days without food. It is written that
hospitality to the Brahman is required. Yama, apologizing,
said "Oh Brahamana, obeisances, since thou has waited with-
out food in my house for three nights may I offer any three
gifts which thou desire."
P 08328 BLACK, Clayton J
Crime: Rec'd for Diagnosis / 1203.03 PC
Sentence: 90 Day Placement (Poss Dang Drug & Driv
U/l of Narc)
Judge: W. Seagram
DA: H. A. Schenly: PD
Soon down the wooded hill came long striding two tall
athletic Englishmen in robes. One in seventies one thirties.
The old man came up radiating pure love glow.
We had come without pre-arrangement but were invited to
the second floor porch room. Seated on cushions Sri Krishna
Prem and Ashish served tea. When he discovered Harvard pro-
fessor misfired for spiritual advocation his warmth unbounded.
Your sadhana lead to cheerfully give up reputation and
has lead you footsure to this remote valley in search of divine
true. This here your home.
Naciketa first wished that his father forget his anger and
forgive his son. Granted, quote Yama.
Sri Khrishna Prem knew all around LSD. Siva powerful sacra-
ment, divine electsir more powerful than newclear bomb. Be
prareful. He was deeply interested teaching of Gurdjieff and
scorned less of pompass followers. He spoke with wisdom and
with love. The man who kails himself Maharishi seeks dame
and money. And poor Meher Baba who fames he onwiy
Havatar will get alassly the followers he deserves. We sat on
floor surrounded books. We have given most of the lib-rary
away. Keep old alchemical texts. Ancient gnostic commen-
taries. Take this with you. My meditations on the Katha Upan-
ishad. The book was sun yellow bound!
Naciketa wished next that Yama teach him fire sacrifice,
the aid to heaven. Gladly, sage Yama, and described the man-
ner in which the ancient ritual ash performed. Being delighted
by noble youth added the boon that forever more the sacrifice
of fire would be known by name of Naciketa.
P 08329 BRUNO, Margerito Flores
Crime: Poss Mari
Sentence: 6mo-10
Judge: J. Walker
DA: J. Beam: PD
It is now time for our evening worship. Would you join Sri
30
Krishna Prem? We worship Krishna, young God of love.
Krishna is the human embodiment of Gods endless goodness.
He is father, lover, shepherd, musician, dearest Baby God-child,
son, teacher, brother, laughing friend. Come worship us with
him.
The temple small. High altar for Baby God. We sat on mats
outside wide open temple doors. Ashish and young English-
man bound in stood to right Sri Krishna strode from hallway
beside. As he enteroom Ashish be banging on huge metal
triangle. Membrane bending sound bombs whiled friend whal-
ing too drums. Barumb. Barumb. G!ang-a-rang-bang. Barumb.
Barumb. Mind blasting, reeling auditory earsaulting clamor.
Sri Krishna Prem striding masterfully, chanting. Barumb, Ba-
rumb. Swift sure musculated whirlspin, action, whisking bullock
tail clang-a-rang. Baloom. Baloom. Locomotor triangular round-
house insense smoking, dervish energy tornado. Hari Krishna
harlcane sweep up. In frenergetic trance. Sri Krishna Prem
turning lifting sweet parts comes to us offer puja. Sweeps out
of room and sound stops.
Choose now, O Naciketa, the third boon. And the young
man asked: What happens after death?
P 08330 BLACK, Waiter Lee
Crime: Burg 2nd 7459 PC
Sentence: 6mo-15
Judge: W. Street
DA: T. Mortgage: PD
What is that, a writ you reading, asked little Bobbie Robber
cell mate. Tis a handridden conversion of a leaguel book which
hath many a soul freed prison incarnation. By sitting in the
corner of the room next to the twilight bowl eye look through
bars at redding sun be with Rosemary setting sundeck Berke-
ley. A young silly white boy downtiers flirting awkwardly with
dusky Queen below. The three tier zoo mammalian stir with
well-fed evening erraticism.
We sat on floor in kitchen, Sr. K.P. sit cooking before high
fire place. Graceful ceremony. Ashish assist. We grow our own
wheat and grind it. We milk our own herd. Milk and cheese.
We used to be strit-rictualists. Obsessive detail to taboos.
Spend five hours a day bathing, feeding, dressing baby statue
Krishna. Bakti. Bakti. Yoga of love. Through dedicated love
of this doll Krishna we find divine. Forbid interdict. Check.
Search all visitors to make sure no leather belt, no leather
shoes, no leather wallet. No cow hide. Strict. Strict.
Hundreds of food rituals. Keep separate. Wash different
bowls. Baictt. 8aKti, lovs ol ritual is love of God.
31
One day young sincere boy came to visit. While we were
out walking he went into kitchen to wash dishes. Horrid.
Washed wrong dishes in right bowls. Completely smashed our
purity. When we returned I was furious. Flew into rage. Had
to smash and throw away all dishes. Tantrum. That night we
realized that our love of ritual eroded our love for sloppy
people. So we gradually changed. Bakti. Bakti. Bakti. Each
minute is eternity of love. We have sloped off ritual. We now
worship freely and gently.
P 08331 WHITE, Warren Smith
Crime: Stat Rape
Sentence: 6mo-50
Judge: F. Prye
DA: W. Seagram: Q. Rankin
We find Krishna in the press and schedule of daily living.
Ashish and I have lived together for many years. Incessant
grinding elbowing gritty yoga of daily love. I was hard on
him. Relentless. Days of revolt and doubt. Will our love sur-
vive. Krishna has taught us that love in living is love of God.
We cannot proselytize. Invite others. Large ashram. Our yoga
is too intimate. Too demanding. Second by second.
Paul, here, was follower of Gurdjieff. When his teacher died
he wrote us begging to come. For six months we turned away
his letters. Finally we let him visit for two weeks. Then he
returned to England. Now he has come back for a few months.
There are no shortcuts to the eternal love. In which all is given.
The old sage was ill and tired. Ashish anxious glances but
he kept us late. Our days of talking are numbered. You came
to me late, Brother. I want to leave you as much as I can.
You will need it. Your yoga hurdles you into high energies.
Be careful of the powers. Once you have entered the Divine
mansion, as I see you have, there are many temptations. The
outer rooms are filled with visions, delights, miracles, occult
powers, new forms of radiance. Be careful, do not be diverted.
Do not linger too long with the new powers. Go forward to
the one, light, pure eye center from whence all arises and to
which all returns.
To morrow visit cell where handscribing monk. Thank you
brother for the loan of Upanishads. My dearest wise guru in
Himalayas first gave me the Katha. How mysterious that it
should reappear here. I return it to you with thanks.
Look man. I'm leaving this afternoon for Quentin. Yeah, they
downed me good. It will be all right. But I can't take the manu-
script through body inspection. You keep it here and when
you leave pass it on to another soul who needs it.
32
r
P 08332 BROWN, Ricardo
Crime: Theft of Vehicle
Sentence: 6mo-5
Judge: H. Ford, PD
After a few days it came to past that sturdy Jupiterian from
Aquarius orbits round. Hell's Angel. Teach me. What do you
want to learn? I wanna ride high, a Heaven Angel. I'll settle
for anything outta Hell. Watch me do, Brother, I have little to
say.
Comes to my bunk bearing offerings. Can of Bugle Crackers.
Peanut butter. Honey. Sitting lotus-pose I praise the Tao for
these gobbling goodness. Wiping mouth and lightmg cigarette.
Well friend, what can I offer you? Teach me.
Remember the handscrawled Katha on yellow legal sheets.
Read the introduction slowly. We chant the propitiatory CM
together. Do you feel vibration in back bone. That is the hum of
galactic energy. Electron and proton harmonizing. Can you
feel how we are on same frequency. Docile nod yes.
Reading the Katha on over-flow skid row amid the noisy
throng of prison. It's a beautiful clear translation. Comes
through across the four thousand years. Electric message.
Despite the static.
Forest philosopher high on Soma. Vedas. Upanishads. Down
through Schopenhauer to young Oxford scholar sits on Hima-
laya terrace receiving and transmitting, take this dear Timothy,
handwritten in County Jail, smuggled into prison and the
shaven head Hell's Angel sits now in his cell making his own
copy which he will pass on when he passes on from here.
There once a time a Father who was sloppy and selfish in
worship and his son mocked him, protesting, dissenting, and
the Father in his anger cursed the boy to death who answered
the three questions which I shall now reveal to you.
Cm. Shanti. Cm. Shanti.
P 08333 BRUNO, Ricardo Gilberto
Crime: GT (prob Rev)
Sentences: 6mo-10
Judge: J. Mellon: PD
33
March 24 70 Chino/Vacaville
THE FOLLOWING AUTOMOBILE BODIES WILL BE TRANS-
PORTED FROM RCG CIM CDC TO RGC CMF VAC VIA REGU-
LARLY SCHEDULED MBDR (73946) Per 82522. LEAVE CELL AT
3:00 A.M. INDIGESTIVE FUELING MADRONE HALL 3:30 A.M.
BODY WASH AND INSPECTION RECEIVING & RELEASE
3:45 A.M. PROPORTION OF CARCASS TO LIFE STORE IN
HOLDING TANK 3:50 A.M. UNTIL 6:00 A.M. HIGH PROPOR-
TION OF LOIN & REAR QUARTERS.
"I done foteen years in these Motherfucking California
prisons. I just can't make it out there. Heroin. That's my thing.
Hunnerd dollar day habit. CMCRC that's the place. More dope
there than on the street. When the guard marched me to the
office I'm holding my works in my left hand like that, unner-
stand, and I juss slide it off in bushes so clean, unnerstand,
some happy Motherfucker mussa blown his wig fine that little
bag. Had eight points. I got me some cunt in every prison in
this state, except Quentin. Oh that heroin make it hard."
DRESS IN WHITE JUMP SUITS HANDCUFFED ALLOWED
ONE PACKAGE OF UNOPENED CIGARETTES ON BUS.
P 08334 WHITE, Keith Miller
Crime: Burg 2nd
Sentence: 6mo-15
Judge: B. Kornfeld
DA: J. Morgan: PD
"Oh man, we should be on left side of Motherfucking bus.
You get to see more. Unnerstand. Pussy, man. When we pass
those cars those cunts driving with skirts up they ass,
whoooeeee, you look right up they legs. Oooh. There's one
coming now. Let's go. Aw. Motherfucking pants no good."
PROCEED ON FREEWAY NORTH VIA GRAPEVINE UP
CENTRAL VALLEY.
Crazy old man mumbling to self. Trying to roll powdery
state tobacco with handcuffs. "Here brother, have a tailor
made." Looks up. Radiant grin. Oxford voice. "Why thank you,
Governor. A Pall Mall after breakfast is a rare and delicious
treat."
34
Rolling green farm land. Fruit tree blossoming. Last year
we slept under the pear tree and the air was fragrant.
Rolling north to Berkeley home. Ontological architectural
designing. Planning drive from Vacaville home to Berkeley.
Reality kit. Do it yourself. Construct a future.
Where is hell? Some were of the opinion that hell is everywhere, that the
damned are at liberty to roam about in the entire universe, but that they
carry their punishment with them. The adherents of this doctrine were
called "Ubiquitists" or Ubiquitarians; among them were Johann Brenz, a
Swabian, a Protestant theologian of the sixteenth century.
P 08335 GREY, Walter Lee
Crime: Poss Mari & Poss Firearm by Ex-Felon
11530 H & S & 12021 PC
Sentence: 6mo-10 & 6mo-15 CC
Judge: J. Hangslinger
DA: J. Beam: PD
FOLLOWING YOUTHFULL BODIES TO BE DROPPED OFF
AT CMC DVI CDC TRACY FOR YEARLING PROCESS TO BE
CHECKED INCLUSIVE ESCAPE W/0 FORCE: BURG 2ND:
POSS FIREARM BY EX-FELON WEIGHT AND SIZE ACCORD-
ING TO AGE ASS W D'DLY WEAP W INT. T COM MURD:
5-LIFE FORM DEEP, BROAD THROUGHOUT LOW SET,
STRAIGHT TOP AND UNDERLINE FORG (PROB REVOC)
CONSTITUTION: GOOD DEPTH AND WIDTH OF CHEST: 1-15
POSS NARC FOR SALE & SELL NARC: QUALITY: SMOOTH
THROUGHOUT: GOOD HANDLER AS INDICATED BY SOFT
, LOOSE, PLIABLE SKIN COVERED WITH FINE DOWNY HAIR:
BONE, FINE YET OF SUFFICIENT SUBSTANCE AND
STRENGTH TO CARRY BODY ASLT W. INT. TO COM. RAPE
5-15 & 5-LIFE; SELL NARC 5-LIFE: CONDITION: CARRYING
NATURAL, FLESH ENOUGH TO INDICATE VIGOR GRAND
THEFT 6 MOS-10 DISPOSITION: ENERGETIC DOCILE (DIS-
QUALIFICATION ELIMINATE FROM CLASS.)
The kids to be dropped at Tracy were scared. Bloody cock
pit. Father, Father why hath thou forsaken me to this snarling
sodamnrius frightmare. Gotta show you'll fight or you'll be raped.
Join a gang or you get picked off.
The lawns were barefoot green boys running grass mowers
gamboling, sunny serene afternoon, bees humming, lazy spring
warmth and the guards in the gun-towers daydreaming.
Our kids filed off a fare-thee-well and one young wired up
crazy kid joins us exploding news. Oh man, wait till I tell them
on the main line I rode the Grey Goose with you. Big riot last
night. Man they really got a screw. In surgery all morning.
Three inmates killed.
35
He was 23 In prison since age 16 seething energy, com-
pletely at war with system, resigned life time brutal confine-
ment. Never been on street during adolescence to know the
soft bodies of girls all raging seed sexuality committed to vio-
lence, teeth knocked out, crazy twisted grin, covered with
scars. He gazed on me his culture hero. Oh man wait til I
tell my sister I met you. You're her idol. How old is she?
Fifteen.
P 08336 WHITE, Joseph Eugene
Crime: Burg 2nd 7459 PC
Sentence: 6mo-5
Judge: J Mellon
DA: M. Dollar: PD
(Biographers please note: The Pied Piper of Hamlin was
wandering musician. Piper. Flute. Performed him dooty for
society. Good rid-dance for rodents. He did not kill hated,
feared, wicked grey whiskered. Sweetly piped them out of
town to plushy, rich forest where happily forllver after. No
pesticides, traps, poisons. Only soft sweet tunes little four feet
scamper way. Hoard of Directators ungrateful spited. By simple
loving mute-flute solution? Thit gone and past a law against
him him merrily wanders out of time town, no complaints,
(you'll miss me when I'm gone, you will) no trouble but the
kids do listen after him.)
PROCEED CALIFORNIA MEDICAL FACILITY CDC RGC
CMF USA VACAVILLE
"This joint is like a Motherfucking Air Force Base, man,
unnerstann, they efficient Motherfuckers, smooth, all smooth
but chicken shit man if you get outta line. Military."
PAROLE VIOLATOR WITH NEW TERM
P 08337 GREEN, William Ireland
Crime: Forg, 3 cts ALL-CC & CC WPT 470 PC
Sentence: 6mo-14, 3 cts. ALL-CC WPT
Judge: P. Twitchell
DA: R. Counts; J. Grossman
Give four autographs receive two pkg cigarettes, one (1)
copy of Radhakrishnan History of Indian Philosophy, four
stamped envelopes and stored In cage with fifty-year-old pink
rabbit accountant who lives with his Mother. Dear furry Mother
Tucker Beddy Bye Boy. Got drunk in public sent to County
Honor Farm for six months after four months and three days
wandered off to highway and hitched ride to El Centre, walked
up to truck-driver In parking lot and sold wrist-watch for $3.50.
Liquor stores closed so bought six pack spent night in park,
it was cold, slept on windy bark pench. Early morning bought
36
two bottles of Muscatel arrested at high noon. Convicted of
felonious escape without force five year term. Maximum gun-
tower security because escapee. SKP DANGER!
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: INCOMPLETE HEADING
Prison crowded. Sleep overflow. Forty double bunk beds,
eighty men on tier floor. Share twelve square feet with seven
criminals. In six days not one negative vibration. Look down
bed time face old-time hoodlum, tattooed mugger rubber shin-
ing innocent love. Cheerful, sharing, family loving group.
The Ubiquitarian is universally and deservedly rejected; for it is more in
keeping with their state of punishment that the damned be limited in their
movements and confined to a definite place.
P 08338 GREEN, James Timothy
Crime: Burg 2nd w/2 PFC 2 cts & CC WPT 459 PC
Sentence: 6 mo-15 2 cts & CC WPT
What does PFC mean?
Prior Felony Convictions.
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: IMPROPER STATIONERY
Neumann, the young drug experimenter wanted by the
police. Is talking:
"I was impressed by the opening sentence of your Heidegger book. It
seemed to me to go to the heart of the problem. Man's experience of
the world is basically an experience of limitation."
"I noticed something very similar in your article on suicide." said Zweig.
"Be of good cheer and say that you are burying my body only."
When he had spoken these words he rose and went into the bath
chamber with Crito, who bade us wait; and we waited, talking, and think-
ing of the greatness of our sorrow.
37
March 26 70 Vacaville
Delightful science fiction story by blessed Gerald Heard.
Higher intelligence planet where men collaborate symbiotically
with bees. Supermen come down to Earth. To cool us out
while ellas allies have Conference of Bees. We Idiots become
symbiots.
Horoscope for week: Your personality is center of some con-
troversy. Keep in close contact with admirer or supporting
person. Do not try to handle some matter alone.
P 08339 ITALIC, Giovanni
Crime: Escape from Slate Prison w/o Force CS WPT
4530 PC
Sentence: 6mo-5 CS WPT
Judge: A. Linletter
DA. R. Reegan: PD
What does CS mean?
Consecutive with recurrent term. Running wild. One stretch
on top of another.
RGC COURT RETURN WITH NEW TERM
The Blacks: They were dressed in rags and tatters which they wore not
without style and pride. They talked with the greatest relish and delight.
They were gay and laughed continually. Their laughter seemed to come
straight from some sure, inviolate source within where they were unfail-
ingly refreshed and had the habit of feasting with kings. Their laughter
matched the sun, the curve of the sky and the somberly burning land
and it flashed like some Inspired revelation of the future.
P 08340 BRUNO, Jesus
Crime: Escape from State Prison w/o Force CS WPT
4530 PC
Sentence: 6mo-5 CS WPT
Judge: A. Linkletter
DA: R. Reegan
Eye remember hallway line at Orange County Jail. Seven
foot majestic muscled Black walk up to guard station poised,
haughty African king. As turn away, small frail, bespectacled,
pimpled white took him place. It was only a ludicrous acci-
38
dental snapshot juxtaposition, quite unfair, but to eye couldn't
help making wicked comment to men around: "White su-
premacy!"
Although is omnipresent, is said to dwell in Heaven, because
the light and grandeur of the stars are the brightest manifestations of
infinite splendor. But the damned are utterly estranged from ;
hence their abode is said to be as remote as possible from dwelling,
far from Heaven above and its light, and consequently hidden away in the
dark abysses of the earth.
39
March 27 70 Vacaville
Two young Blacks meet, by suprise, in the mess hall.
"Hey, man, what you doing here?"
Grinning. "Oh, I got three life tops."
He was about nineteen years old, with three lives to serve.
ADULT PROCESS CASES
P 08341 GREY, John Baptist
Crime: Rec'd for Diagnosis /1 203.03
Sentence: 90 Day Placement (Fraud Poss Comp Check)
Judge: A. Carnegie
DA: J. Morgan
Jiggs, forty-year-old Black heroin addict, thin as needle,
spoons up to me bunk.
"Tim, answer me one question."
"Eye try."
"How long, man? How long is this going to go on?"
Jiggs come up again. Laughing.
"See that dude down there? He's ticketed for Quentin sure.
Know what he tell me? He say, 'Man, they can't sent me to
Quentin. I'm camp material.' Dig that. Camp material."
Eye say, "Ask me and I'll tell you I'm street material."
Jiggs breaks up behind this. Holds out el palm high, high
slap it, laughing at man pleasure.
Chicanes start meetings in yard. First time they have taken
group action. Danny tell me, "The Chicanes were too proud
to do things in groups. When they were mad they'd wait and
rip off enemy on their own, man to man. Now they have agreed
to cool individual violence. It's beautiful."
Fifty solemn brown men cluster round spokesman, harangue
them fiercely. Hold small Mexican banderas. When they-els
break up shout "Viva La Revolution. Viva Unitad."
P 08342 BLACK, John Henry
Crime: Poss Narc (Prob Rev) 1150c H & S
Sentence: 2-10
Judge: E.J. Lilley
DA: P. Davis
40
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: IMPROPER RETURN ADDRESS.
Always everywhere Black laughter. Deep body-soul laughter.
II. The existence of hell: The existence of hell Is, of course, denied by all
those who deny the existence of . Thus among the Jews, the Sad-
ducees, among the gnostics, the Seleucians, and in our own time Pan-
theists, etc. deny the existence of hell. But apart from these, if we abstract
from the eternity of the pains of hell, the doctrine has never met with
any opposition worthy of mention.
P 08343 BRUNO, Henry Reyes
Crime: Robb 1st 2 cts CC 211 PC
Sentence: 5-Life 2 cts CC
Judge: L. Johnson
DA: J. Mitchell
Low-rider gunsells rape off hippies. Any longhair him pigeon
for punking. Punked? Forcible asshole rape. Some hippies kill
themselves.
41
March 29 70 Vacaville
I'M THE FRIENDLY BULL OF VACAVILLE
The first day of weakend, Easter Sunday lying disordered
linen sheets our nightly sepulchres rudely rent in twain from
top to bottom alarm awake. Arise the day hath broken. For
preventation resurrection a guarded watch for ours of sleep.
Down the beds roaming footroop cop-cap rakish back on
head come anding. Rise again from the dead. Easter egg hunt
starts in twenty minutes.
Bodies rising from bed joyously greeting Passcall dawn.
What a fuck that Motherfucking bull think he Motherfucking
comedian. Eye glance him curious. Fat, red, self-adulatory
Irish face.
After these things he deed show himself being morning the
second day when matin bell had run where the discipled were
once again in mourning. Waiting for bull to bring hot coffee
water from kitchen. Seating lotus pose on upper bunk look
down at khaki-lad.
"Say Leary. I bin looking at her jacket. You sure had inner-
resting life."
"You record only tell me extraresting life. I grant no inner-
views."
"Says you were at Holy Cross College 1938-39. Zat right?"
I answered: "I have told you that I am he. If therefore ye
seek me, let these others go their way."
Sirloin face sizzle smile. "Well we must have known each
other. I'm from Worcester and in 1938-39 I was a bus boy in
the dining hall."
"I do recall you served me well."
Among the brothers standing and putting on garments there
was grumbling. "Tell Motherfucking screw get the hot water
for our coffee."
Leaning on his spear the guard unwrapped adolescent
memory. "Do you remember," saith he, "when Artie Shaw
came to the Cross gym. Back Bay Shuffle. And Benny Good-
man."
Group collects around amazement, good thieves, bad
thieves, publicans, sinners, disciples in underwear gaping.
42
"Dig the Motherfucking screw trying to be honkey friendly.
Benny Goodman: Sheeeeeeet!"
My bunkmate Jiggs bent over munnbling to his blankets.
"What Motherfucking happen being friendly to Motherfucking
bull."
Guard suddenly snap back from reverie. "Now take it easy
boy."
Jiggs turn unfold tall height. "Don't call me boy, bull. I'm
thirty-three years old. How old are you, screw?"
Steer overdone face turn red-rare. "That's the trouble with
you people. Anti social. Have to be tough guys. Big shots. I
try to be human with you and you get up tight. You people
don't fool me. I read your letters home every night. You act
so tough around here and then go whining ^nd soppy good
boy to your Mothers."
Eye sitting enthroned on upper bunk ascended judge of living
and the dead look down on prisoner surrounded by sternly
twenty. One of them that stood by drew out a word and smote
the servant of the high priest in the ear: "MOTHERFUCKER!"
Screw look up at me appealing mercy. I look down shaking
head sadly. "I have heard your case and I find you guilty,
Guilty, of disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct."
"But listen. I'm Guilty, the friendly bull. I try to be nice to
these people."
"Ignorance is no excuse. You come trambling noisy througti
our early morning garden. Bad manners. Mad banners. Flaunt-
ing our night letter secrets and putting us down. I have lived
with these men some days now, and I do tell you they are as
saintly kings to me. In all this time, living as we do in chained
crowded squalor there has been naught but kindness. Look
at us. All tribes. Black. Brown. White. Grey. Let your world
model ours and spare us talk of 'you people.' "
The telephone belled him away shrugging his shoulders
wagging his head muttering.
"And get the hot water boy," shouted Jiggs.
43
April Fools Day 70 Chino
Me led hand-cuffed into seven jails in six weeks. Fourteen
different cells.
Night the Orange County sheriff locked me holding tank,
it said, "For you, we throw away the key."
While Rosemary and Mike Standard search jails of Houston
waiting maya rival, Federal Marshals hid (concell) me in De-
tention Center Florence Arizona. Learned later that thits have
girl friends Phoenix. Routinely stash bodies in Florence.
Texas marshals are the worse. Pot bellies. Slack jaws. Jowls.
Narrow slit eyes that never look at you. Cigarettes dangling
from thits lips. Great God can nu ever reach thits? Make them
laugh?
Orange County deputies glad to see me back Texas. And
I was glad to see thits crew-cut Marine sergeants.
Chino Reception Guidance Center Prison dirty, smoggy,
sloppy baggy ass. Southern California body processing plant.
Vacaville, near Bay area, slick, smooth class Berkeley Police
Club.
The Church has repeatedly defined this truth, e.g. in the profession of
faith made in the Second Council of Lyons (n. 464) and in the Decrees of
Union In the Council of Florence (693). "the souls of those who depart in
mortal sin, or only in original sin, go down immediately into hell, to be
visited, however, with unequal punishments." Poenis disparibus.
P 08344 GRAY, James Lawrence
Crime: DischFirearm in Occupied BIdg 246 PC
Sentence: 6mo-5
Judge: U.S. Grant
DA: J. Edgar
Prison cell perfect experimental psychology laboratory.
Locked In single cell, with me own mind, me own body.
Soulitary con-finement.
Stimulus deprivation. Outside, we richochet each day
through billion-faceted traffic-jam of choice points. Inside
single cell choice restricted. What do with body? What do
with mind? Hermetic purity. Monastic vacuum void external
pressure.
Crazed minotaur chained in center of complex maze. Letters
44
restricted. Visits restricted. No phone calls. Foreign relations
so rare so slow observe effects microscopic clear. In-com-
munication. Yo write letter tonight. Slowed censorship reaches
four days. Return message more than week. Write seven letters
before answer first.
Body and mind. Zen purity only solution. Live here now.
Thoughts of past and future masterbatory. Patient blue-denim
spiders weave fragile web of serenity. Focus on moment day
spins by. Wrestle with daze of future-passed hours press dull-
hot-toothache snail pain.
Zen balance so delicate. Slightest pressure tips wildly.
In dealing with prisoner, remember, tu deal with Buddha
one thin feather removed from paranoia.
If we abstract from the eternity of its punishment, the existence of hell
can be demonstrated even by the light of mere reason. In sanctity and
justice, as wefl as in wisdom, must avenge the violation of the Moral
Order in such wise as to preserve, at least in general, some proportion
between the gravity of sin and the severity of punishment. But it is evident
from experience that does not always do this on earth; therefore
will inflict punishment after death.
P 08345 GREY, John Lewis
Crime: Robb 2nd (Prob Rev) & Robb 2nd CC 21 PC
Sentence: 1-Life, 2 cts CC '
Judge: G. Westmorland
DA: R. Taylor: PD
PLIGHT COLLAR CRIME
Young Jon tousled hair, lanky, basketball kid-next-door sold
half him stash for ten dollars to friend of friend who be a narc.
Under new devil law el do five to life for sales. Here on ninety
day observation to see if deserves probation. Young Jon
scared. Follows around big frightened flop-puppy, eager to
run errands, constant jabber agitate foolishness. People ask
me, "Is that your son?" Jon grins rattles what friends we are.
With el like In Volkswagen with overgrown Greyhound puppy,
leap, bark, scrambling nervous energy. Play handball two
hours the day.
Always over-reacting, in-mature breakfasj irritation. "God-
dammit, these Motherfucking dump-trucks have gone and put
a sissy in my cell. I can't stand it man. I'm going to demand a
transfer. Every gunsell on the tier is punking him and I have
to live with that. Jeez, he's crazy. You know what he did? He
used my toothbrush. Can you dig that? After I told him not to
and marked mine with a red pencil. Now I can't use it after all
the stuff that's been in his mouth."
45
P 08346 WHITE, Eugene Lee
Poss Mari (Prob Rev) & RSP CC 11530 H & S & 496 PC
Sentence: 6mo-10 & a cts CC
Judge: J. Schenly
DA: J. Walker: PD
Next day Jon came up in yard frantic. He was going to kill
those Motherfuckers. Maya reputation ruined.
It seemed that last night in the secret hush of two man cell,
Jon plaid gunsell, coerced shy, timid schizoid boy to blow him.
And then he whacked punk off with hand.
Now all the tier knew about it teasing him. "Dammit, I'm
no queer, but now they lay that jacket on me."
All seem so comic, except Jon weeping really tears In
middle prison yard.
Cheerem up. He'll ask for transfer to honor dorm. Tell a
guard pressure to fight. Escape me rumble during observation
period.
Move next day. Never mention again.
Little sissy look at me calf eyes. Always weak and small.
Do anything get accepted tough guys.
Moreover, If all men were fully convinced that the sinner need fear no
kind of punishment after death, moral and social order would be seriously
menaced. This, however, cannot permit.
P 08346 BLACKMAN, Bobbie Boyd
Crime: Sell Mari 11531/ H & S
Sentence: 5-Life
Judge: C. Bark
DA: H. Hangsiinger: PD
Second night in prison. Sandy georgeous girl in tier below,
seductive voice calling "Hey Timothy. You sure are beautiful
man. I dig you, Timothy. Will you marry me?"
Eye knew eighty men listening expectation. Be quiet but
there no escape. "Hey Timothy. I dig you kind of man. Will
you marry me?"
"Sandy, I can't marry you. I got a good wife now."
Answer cooed back. "Yes, but she's not here and I am. Let
me be your girl here, Doc."
"But she is here, Sandy. Hey Sandy. Listen. Can't you feel
her presence. She's with me all the time."
"Yeah, but Timothy. I mean, my pussy's here right now and
she wouldn't mind."
"Oh, Sandy, you don't know my woman. She's aweful
jealous. And you wouldn't want to make her mad at you. She's
got a thirty-five and a half inch chest."
Figured it only righteous let listen In audience trip out.
46
Silence second and then big whoop joyous laughter reverberate
around gallery.
Then big Bull voice cut In, deep, chuckle laughter. "Anyway
Sandy, you is my girl and I catch you peddling you soft asshole
round I whip you hoe ass good."
There are arbitrary and vain subterfuges, unsupported by any sound reason;
positive punishment is the natural recompense of evil. Besides, due pro-
portion between punishment and demerit would be rendered impossible
by an indiscriminate annihilation of all the wicked.
(Neumann talking about his dead friend GeorgI:)
"He used to think that man has some essential faculty that he has never
used, whose existence he hardly suspects ..."
"You mean telepathy, or something like that?" [Asked Zwelg.]
"That is what Georgi meant. I am not sure. That is not how the problem
came to me. Let me tell you how it first came to me. You remember how
we were always having electricity cuts and gas cuts in Heidelberg, with
half the workers on strike? Well, one day, my father put on a kettle to
make coffee, but the gas was very low, and it took nearly an hour to boil.
My father was trying to write an article for a psychological journal at the
same time. Suddenly he looked up and said: 'My brain is like that kettle
it won't boil.' And in a flash it came to me: that is what is wrong with all
human consciousness. The pressure is so low that it never boils. We live
at half pressure. We are all psychologically undernourished because the
pressure of consciousness is so low.
". . . for the most part, we are like dynamos that turn infinitely slow
because they are fed by a mere trickle of electricity. Now the problem that
occurred to me was this: what is the source of the electric current that
drives us? . . ."
... it took Zweig a few moments to realize that he was expected to
answer. He said slowly:
"The source? Energy . . , will power, I suppose . . ."
Neumann cut in: "Quite . . ."*
Now the hour of sunset was near, for a good deal of time had passed
while he was within. When he came out he sat down with us again but
not much was said.
P 08348 WHITE, William Edward
Crime: Sell Dang Drug
Sentence: 5-Life
Judge: J. Seagram
DA: A. Linkletter: PD
And finally, if men knew that their sins would not be followed by sufferings,
the mere threat of annihilation at the moment of death, and still less the
* Quite wrong. The energy is eros. WHAT IS NEUMANN WITHOUT WEU-
MANN?
47
prospect of a somewhat lower degree of beatitude, would not suffice to
deter them from sin.
P 08349 BLACK, Freddie King
Crime: Robb lst/211 PC
Sentence: 5-Life
Judge: J. Dillon
DA: H. Dollar
48
April 2 70 Chino
Me surrounded by glow of optimism. But sometimes el wears
off.
Young inmates shine on me with love 'n admiration.
Olders watch to see who mayam. Some suspiciously. Politi-
cal and religious prisoners disturbing puzzle to a honest
journey-man thief.
Older trustee look at me during lecture. "I don't approve of
all this drug stuff the kids are into. I drink booze. I'm a thief
and a damn good one. Except for. . . . I . . . But I'm an American
and I sympathize with parents of teen-agers who are upset
about drugs. If I had teen-age kids and they were into drugs
and I thought you encouraged them I'd have no hesitation in
shooting you in cold blood."
The counselors (caseworkers who have great authority in
determining which prison an inmate is sent to) very down on
drug cases. Thit throw crook-book at kids who turn on. "At
least an armed robber or a murderer has guts. You drug users
are cowardly escapists.
Every inmate has a file, called "jacket." When interviewed
by legion evaluators of mortal and immortal sins, staffworker
endless reading your file. Frown, flip pages. Eye sit quietly
with maya papers in lap and make me own notes.
The few men who, despite morally universal conviction of the human race,
deny the existence of hell, are mostly atheists and Epicureans. But if the
view of such men in the fundamental question of our being could be the
true one, apostasy would be the way to light, truth, and wisdom.
ORIENTATION LECTURE DELIVERED BY A FROWNING PER-
MANENT WORK CREW TRUSTEE
Listen to a word of warning. Warning. Warning.
Have cooperate. Have a cope a rate. Cope a rate.
Know whats good for you. Good for you. Cope a rate is
good for you.
That what you are sposed to do. Posed to do. Do what
you are posed to do.
49
Way that you conduct yourself.
In-mate conduct observation way that inmate duct him self.
Termines gonna happy you.
Term ends what to happen you.
Only fools don't bay the rules.
Don't be fools Obey da rules.
Protestant catholic chaplains here.
Chaplains here.
Chaplains do not work for church ... I mean they do not
work for state.
Paid by church.
Chaplains do things. Things for you. Do things no one else
can do.
Contact for you relatives. Refatives. They contact your
relatives.
If you belong to religion other than Catholic or Protestant.
If you want to push it.
They'll get a chaplain of your faith.
To come and see you.
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: YOUR QUOTA OF FREE MAIL FOR
THE WEEK IS EXHAUSTED.
Caseworkers in Texas, in Santa Ana, very disturbed because
not remember me Army serial number.
P 08350 BLACK, George Patrick
Crime: Poss Narc/ 11500 H & S
Sentence: 2-10
Judge: S. T. Black
DA: J. Carstairs
Crew-cut hoodlum hand me poem:
I left my prison cell and went into the yeard
I'd better walk or get it from the guard
A tall fair man sat under the shade of a tree {sic)
He said, "Hi." And I knew it was Thimothy Leary
He took off his jacket and folded It tight
And said, "Its a nice day. Everything's going
to be all right."
He is In here, accused of smoking a thing called pot
And has been sentenced "one to ten." That Is a lot.
He is a slender man and hair of grey
A fragile man, but set in his way
He picks up two dumb-bells to build up his arms
That's an amazing man, with so much charm
Seems to be everywhere, even playing hand ball
50
A man without violence, walking down the hall
Prisons are to keep "bad" off the street
And his sentent, to some, was quite a treat
You know, if I were in charge of this prison place
I'd say, "Mr. Leary, put a big smile on your face.
You know no violence, and this I must say
Be gone, good man, be on your own way."
Now one free soul
Leave this prison freed of old Karma
Holding together brings new union
ATTENTION ON THE YARD: LEARY 670: STOP KIDDING
YOURSELF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE RELEASED ON
BAIL FACE REALITY YOU ARE IN PRISON FOR TWENTY
YEARS
Seed of paranoia sprouting. Watch it idly. Get interested in
growth possiblity. Cultivate it. Watch it blossom.
YOUR WIFE AND LAWYERS TELL YOU THAT YOU'LL
BE RELEASED IN TWO WEEKS BUT READ BETWEEN THE
LINES THEY DON'T TELL YOU WHAT'S REALLY HAPPEN-
ING
Wait all day for lawyers to come. Thread of love and life
out of here. Need it. Need it. Nervous. Palms sweat. No appe-
tight breakfast. Smoke another chain. Distracted hand ball.
Too jumpy to yoga. Can't stay still. Move. Walk.
ATTENTION ON THE YARD. SMITH 352 REPORT TO THE
SERGEANT'S OFFICE YOU HAVE A VISIT LEARY, PLEASE
EXAMINE THE FACTS YOU ARE FINISHED
III. Eternity of Hell: Holy Writ is quite explicit in teaching the eternity of
the pains of hell. The torments of the damned shall last forever and ever.
On third tear waiting for cell to open, looking out at lawn in
front of visitors entrance. In the sunlight. Free people coming
and going. Waiting.
Back on yard. Can't read. Pray. Om. Waiting for loud
speaker.
ATTENTION ON THE YARD. MERCURIC 44 UPPER, ALEGRO
399 LOWER YOU MEN REPORT TO Y'OUR COUNSELOR
IMMEDIATELY LEARY YOU HAD SO MANY CHANCES AND
YOU BLEW THEM ALL ISN'T IT OBVIOUS WHAT IS HAP-
PENING
P 08351 MOTLEY, Herbert Milton
Crime: Burg 1st /459 PC
Sentence: 5-Life
Judge: 8. Roebuck
DA: M. Fields
51
Less rest. Walk more. Talk to Methedrine Freddie. Sweet
agitated tenderness. El says: I prayed for you seven days in
row. Willie Mays calls to baseball. Come Tim play. See Tim
play third base. See Tim catch ball. Friendly hoots from op-
ponents. See Tim throw out runner at second. Willie bat me
first. Swing wild first two. Fast throwing giant Black ease up.
Toss me easy long fly. Willie Madden comes. "I got deeply
involved in your quarrel with Tom Lynn." Frown sincere. "I
waited a long time before I hung that snitch jacket on Lynn.
He's a liar. Man, before you came to the county* jail he wore
his hair like us low riders. When you came he let it go hippy.
Man, when I get out of here I can never touch a gun."
"What will you do?"
"Maybe I'll become a pimp." Grin devilly. "I'll be your body
guard. You know. When I'd hold up stores, the thing I always
used to enjoy was the expression on their faces. When they'd
look up and see the gun. I felt so much power. They were so
surprised. It used to make me laugh and laugh."
P 08352 BLACKMAN, Terry Roe
Crime: Dish Firearm at Vehicle / 23110
Sentence: 6mo-5
Judge: J. Colt
DA: S. Winchester
ATTENTION ON THE YARD. LEARY, YOU ARE NOT GO-
ING TO GET A VISIT TODAY OR TOMORROW EITHER.
Every LSD experimenter knows there is one perspective of
awareness from which everything looks grey-black. Lifeless.
Interminate. Unbroken chain of love-failure, selfish rejections,
waste.
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: BEGGING FOR LOVE OR PUTTING
TOO MUCH STRESS ON THE NEED FOR SAME.
THE WRATH OF ^ABIDETH ON THE DAMNED.
Sitting on bunk making Bad-Karma list. The heavens for-
feited. Love blooms blighted. Trusts betrayed. Poignant invita-
tions spurned. Moments, days, years neglected.
Every memory fits into black structure. How could I have
been so blind? Oh God, did I really do that? Why didn't I see
it.
All past events iron filings click into perfect magnetic para-
noia. You just went out of your way to ruin it. How patient they
have been to put up with me so long. But this one is too much.
Final blunder In the long blind repetitious pattern.
52
Check list of eighteen ominous forboding events.
Sit on bunk smoking chains of cigarettes watching self busily
weave dark pattern. Irrepressible creative imagination now
busy sliding warp of implication across thick fibres of specu-
lation. Poor crazy Bonnie. Now I know how she suffered. She
couldn't stop lunatic loom.
Bolt of sunlight slant across cell. Love smiles in room. Yo
laugh. Warmth in body. Tense muscles relax. Laughing. Pick
up list of eighteen grim indictments along left margin quickly
check off tender loving interpretation.
Pulled off grey dry covering and there in me hand was flower
more beautiful than it had ever been.
Slept soundly and sweetly.
Thank you love.
P 08353 GRAY, Clifford Dale
Crime: L & L Conduct
Sentence: 1-Life
Judge: M. Mitchell
DA: M. West
"Is it a drug?" [Asked Zweig.]
"Not in the normal sense. You see, a drug affects the body by exciting
and stimulating, but also by reducing its efficiency.* For example, that
whiskey is a kind of drug. It gives you a feeling of internal warmth, but *
it also blankets all your perceptions . . . Now the stuff you've just tried
doesn't repress or stimulate. It simply clears away certain obstacles and
allows your energy system to operate without waste or friction."
Soon the jailer entered and stood by him, saying: "To you Socrates, whom
I know to be the noblest and gentlest and best of all who ever came to
this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of other men, who rage and
swear at me, when, in obedience to the authorities, I bid them drink the
poison."
P 08354 GRIS, Russell Joseph
Crime: Burg 2nd (Prov Rev) & GTA w/PFC CC 459
& 487.3 PC
Sentence: 6mo-15 & 6mo-10 CC
Judge: H. Ford
DA: J. Dollar: PD
The Church professes its faith in the eternity of the pains of hell in clear
terms in the Athanasian Creed and in countless' passages of its liturgy.
The Church never prays for the damned. Hence, beyond the possibility of
a doubt, the Church expressly teaches the eternity of the pains of hell
as a truth of faith which no one can deny or call into question without
manifest heresy.
* This sentence does not take into account methedrine which does increase
short-range efficiency, while completely destroying long-range efficiency.
53
April 3 70 Chino
Racial segregation in assigning two-man cells. White with
white. Black with Black. Chicano with Chicane. Age discrimina-
tion two. Young with young. Prehibit older cons seducing
tender young. "Old prison-wise cons lean heavy cane on fresh
young kid. Scare him. Or bribe him with cigarettes."
After dinner walk to athletic Black leans over third tier
railing looking out dirty windows to sunset lawn below. Cabin
class deck of a slow time-liner going no where. "Here we are
again."
Waiting for Vacaville chain. Pumps me information about
"girls" there. Dreaming of a Vacaville bawdy sexual paradise.
Eye sing a song of sex pense.
"In-chanting Black queen likes Vacaville because cells have
mirrors. Dig."
"Oh mercy me," bellows. "Cain't wait to meet those luscious
young ladies at Vacaaaaaa-veel! I'm gonna walk up there with
my dick in mah hann."
Comedian bulls. One tramples by, shoulders hunched in-
mane. "Timothy. Want me to help you get out of here?"
"Sure."
"O.K. I gotta great lawyer I'll get to help you."
"Thanks."
He walked past my cell; then reappeared going down the
stairs.
"Except, I gotta get him out first. Hah. Hah. Hah."
Just as must appoint some fixed term for the time of trial, it is
appropriate that after the expiration of that term the wicked will be cut
off from all hope of conversion and happiness. For the malice of men
cannot compel to prolong the appointed time of probation and to
grant them again and again, without end, the power of deciding their lot
for eternity.
Morning Bull asks me for me autograph. Me pen name. I
agree, but forget.
A few days later it asks me again. It explain that it collect
autographs of famous cons. Pen pals. Someday they'll be
54
worth a lot of money. It shows slip of paper on which Chicano,
famous for winning a landmark Supreme Court case, writ senti-
mental message In Spanish.
Mexican finish fifteenth year prison. Winning case blue
chance for parole on earlier beef.
Autograph request weigh mind unwritten duty. Sanskrit,
FREEDOM EVERYWHERE FOR EVERYONE over maya name.
Guard pleased.
P 08355 BROWNING, Emilio Jesus
Crime: Poss Mari For Sale (Prob Rev) & Consp T/C
Robb 1st & Sell Mari Alt CS/ 11530 H & S &
182 PC
Sentence: 2-10 & 5-Life 2 cts AII-CS
Judge: J. Edgar
DA: J. Crow
That means he does ten years and then one five to life and
then another five to life on top?
Yeah. Running wild. He down for long count.
Willie Mays wear Catholic metal medal Mary Mother, Baby,
Radiant god. Yo admire La. El got in Federal joint. El has
another which el give yo. Yo wear La all time. Catholic medal
from Black Hippie Buddhist worn honor me Mary Full of Grace.
Willie Mays: "The day you won your case in the Supreme
Court, one guy in the Federal Joint fired off a writ citing 'Leary.'
Judge fired it back saying premature. So then 318 guys on
marijuana beefs got together and wrote one writ and signed
all their names to it and in a couple of weeks it came back
granted! Three hundred and sixteen out of three hundred and
eighteen got cut loose right on the spot. Man that joint was
jumping with joy. But two guys didn't get It. They were sad."
Any obligation to act in this manner would be unworthy of , because
it would make dependent upon the caprice of human efficacy, and
would offer the amplest scope and the strongest incentives to human
presumption.
55
April 5 70 Chino
Woke dawn. Sitting bed, heard birds singing. Moment to
realize. Great God, here birds singing! Looked out soar two
swallows flying by third floor cell. Cheer warbling. One flew
to railing just outside maya cell. Perched there look at man.
Watched fifteen minute. Carrying strings in beaks. Billdlng
nest under high window.
Miracle life. I'll build a nest for tu, love.
We are all wild birds, caged. Something dies a bird in-
prisoned. Praised God for loving reminder.
P 08356 BIBLE, Walter Michael
Crime: Murder 1st /187 PC
Sentence: Life
Judge: C. Abel
DAT S. Winchester
FLIGHT COLLAR CRIME
Lunched celebrity today.
Legendary hero flied brand-new 17 million dollar escape-
proof Orange County jail.
With visiting room crowded hundred people friends un-
screwed bolts separate inmates visitors. El scramble through,
put on sweater walked out front of guards.
"Had my rubber issue shower shoes on."
That evening sit stoned friends apartment watch television
replay of run for freedom.
"And they caught you right back in your home town, I bet."
Nodded yes.
"God man! You're such a hero! You'll be talked about as
long as there is a police state. Why didn't you split?"
"I did, man. Went to Hawaii. But I couldn't make it there.
No stuff."
"No stuff In Hawaii?"
"There was plenty of acid and grass but no stuff. I was
hooked."
"You mean you got hooked after you so brilliantly unhooked
yourself?"
"Well my mistake was, I was still hooked when I went in and
56
I brought enough in with me to keep cool for two days and
then I escaped. I had to escape cause I was hooked."
"How did you get the stuff through body inspection?"
"I had it in my body. My mistake was, I should have waited
in jail until I had kicked and then escaped. I'd be in Hawaii
right now if I had."
He was twenty-one. Hollywood handsome. Poised. Gently
humorous. Faced seven years minimum with in-nured shrug.
The objection is made that there is no proportion between the brief moment
of sin and an eternal punishment. But why not? We certainly admit a
proportion between a momentary good deed and its eternal reward, not,
it is true, a proportion of duration, but a proportion between the law and
its appropriate sanction.
P 08357 BLACK, Willie Ted
Crime: Vol Manslaughter
Sentence: 6mo-10
Judge: P. Colt
DA: J. Carstairs
It is well konwn to everyone (including the Blacks) but for
sake of anthropological completeness lie file the Item. The
male Afro-American possesses a root which, on average, is
twice size of Europeen.
57
April 7 70 Chino
P 08358 TANNY, Cleophus Ronnie
Crime: Kidnap & Robb 1st 2 cts All CC 207 & 211 PC
Sentence: 1-25 & 5-Life, 2 cts All CC
Judge: E. J. Younger
DA: C. Hicks
POLITE WHITE COLLAR CRIME
Attended group counseling session today. Recalled time
when eye California forty-niner pioneer development this new
reckless radical form of psychoanalysis. Psychiatrists de-
nounce me advocating promiscuous, indiscriminate abuse of
psychoanalytic principles without supervision of medical doc-
tor.
Idea of "treating" several patients at once shocking as wife-
swapping orgy. State of California Department of Corrections
once paid me consulting fee give lecture demonstrations on
daring innovation.
Karma. Karma. For every evil we deed, we will due again,
walked in room where 42 FORTY-TWO prisonees captive by
two heavily harmed psychologists. Grim lady sit front angry
looking Bill Graham chewing pipe-stem rear.
Prisonees raise justifiable and logical problems about parole
system. How can you be completely honest with an officer
who will, If you are completely honest, slam you back in
prison?
During complaints lady psychologist shake it head, slow
sigh purse it mouth. Public defend her parole system. Herd it
all before. "Parole officers really want you stay on the street."
You stupid fool.
Angry psychologist reflexively turn question back against
speaker. "Have you always been suspicious of people who try
to help you? Were you suspicious of your father and your
school principle?"
Accordingly, there is in sin an approximation to infinite malice which de-
serves an eternal punishment.
A Willie Mays story. When fourteen Mother found twenty
joints in pocket. Gave them back. Promised never to bring
58
grass into house. Smoke them in garage. Asked her to join
but wouldn't.
Mother found out little brother dropping acid. Got upset.
Brother explained love and peace and feeling good and Beatles
and the new religion. Mother understood.
Figured out that same people who didn't like Blacks were
putting hippies down same way they put niggers down. Liked
way hippies walked barefoot and gave peace sign carried their
children with them.
Kid brother took Mother to Be In. Mother agreed to drop half
a tab. To see what it was like. When home was laughing said,
"Now I know what it's like."
When she came to see him at prison she looked in her purse
to find a pencil and the other half of the tab was there in her
coin purse. Ate it laughing.
Finally it must be remembered that, although the act of sinning is brief,
the guilt of sin remains forever; for in the next life the sinner never turns
away from his sin by a sincere conversion.
P 08359 WESTMORLAND, Elton Ray
Crime: Murder 2nd /187 PC
Sentence: 5-Life
Judge: B. McMillan
DA: E. J. Younger
Sitting on grass do yoga. Three young acid dealers doing five
to life come talk. Taken so much acid get flash back at will.
Lie in bunks hallucinate on ceiling. Wave hands get optical
trails.
One, pro-football heroic, born on my birthday. Brother born
same day a year after him. Big telepathy thing after acid.
Told this story. Brothers share same bedroom. Slept on
single beds. Heads close together in corner. Two nights In a
row had disturbing dream. Brothers age 34 and 33. Driving in
mountains in red sports car. Brother at wheel. Car went off
road turned over several times. Smash. Died at once but dis-
embodied, watch ambulance come take brother to hospital.
Where died too.
Second morning told dream to Mother at breakfast. Later
brother came down and told Mother about the same dream.
Never ride in red sports car together.
Asked if he had telepathic experience with acid.
"Oh sure all the time. The girl I went with, my dealing
partner, accurately predicted three police raids. We had just
stashed the stuff and split as they drove up."
"How old is she?"
"Fifteen."
59
P 08360 SALVADOR, Jesus
Crime: Fraud Ross CompI Check (Prob Rev) & PT
w/PFC 2 cts All CC
Sentence: 6mo-14 & 6mo-5, 2 cts Ail CC
Judge: B. Graham
DA: I. M. Downs
"What's happening?"
"I'm waiting for my lawyer to come."
"Yeah, man. Lawerrors always keep you waiting."
It is further objected that the sole object of punishment must be to reform
the evil-doer. This is not true. Besides punishment inflicted for correction,
there are also punishments for the satisfaction of justice.
PLIGHT COLLAR CRIME
Each day stories heartbreaking cruel and sad.
At lunch. Beautiful young black haired boy of nineteen.
At Newport Pop Festival. Cops started a riot. Long-haired kid
threw rock cop and fell on its nose. Cops started search. In
parking lot didn't know there was riot. Cops came up and said,
"That's the one." Booked for assault on police officer with
dangerous weapon. When cop gets wounded thits really go all
out to hang it on someone. Have no money and Father be-
lieved cops. Father hated hippies. Kid had public de-mender
talked to him for less than five minutes. Got five to life. So
depressed, bleak, incredulous, stunned, disbelieving, dazed
sorrow that him story had to be true. Five years before gets to
see the parole board. Five years. Age nineteen to twenty four.
Letters very important to prisoner who has outside love tie.
But outside love ties are impossible and sensible inmate im-
mediately detaches from his exmate. (Go wild crazy berserk.)
PC Box #441
Chine, California
April 7, 1970
Dear Friends:
I awoke yesterday (the 44th day of captivity) to the sound of
birds singing.
There is a large open area In front of the three-story cell block.
Two thrushes were doing their spring thing building a nest on
a high window ledge inside the prison!
What a beautiful reassuring sign from the great life-love center.
One of the birds flew to my cell and cocked her head and sang
a morning song.
I miss Rosemary so much, all ways. That Is, of course, the only
imprisonment to be away from your love.
This experience has been some trip! It's very much like the
Dante bad vision. Momentary separation from love. Everything
looks, sounds, tastes, feels different. Get back! Get me back to
where I belong!
60
I've kept a diary listened, learned so much. I'll be writing
about it.
Prison is an experimental laboratory for all the emotional and
social problems. It's so clear-cut here. So diagrammatic. So easy
to observe the forces that wrench us apart and bring us together.
It's been a revelatory event.
It's not entirely new to me. You recall that while at Harvard
we took LSD over 30 times in prison with long-term inmates.
There is a lot more that I can do to liberate. The solution to
society's problem is prisoner liberation. (The classic jargon of
penology punishment, reform, rehabilitation is nonsense.
We must all be liberated on both sides of the bars.)
We do need your love and support. I'd like to summarize the
legal situation briefly there is so much inaccurate reporting.
1. Laredo: The Federal Dept. of Justice brought me back to
Texas and re-tried me on the 1965 case. This involves less than
one-half ounce of marijuana which (unknown to me) my daughter
possessed. I took the responsibility and was convicted. (On the
basis of my own statements.) Michael B. Standard of New York
is appealing this case. The sentence is a flat ten years for being
in the car where grass was present.
2. Santa Ana: I was convicted of possession of marijuana
based on fragments in my pockets and two roaches in the ashtray
of the car (not my car). IMichael B. Kennedy of San Francisco is
handling this appeal.
Anyone else would have been cut loose on both of these petty
charges. Still, the government is not behaving illegally in trying,
sentencing me to 20 years the law prescribes these terms!
HOWEVER the refusal to provide appeal bond is completely
illegal. Both the Federal and the Santa Ana judges jailed me
pending appeal on the explicit grounds of my public statements,
openly violating my 1st Amendment rights (free speech), my 6th
Amendment rights (convicted of being a dangerous person without
a trial or hearing of fact), and my 8th Amendment rights to
reasonable bail. "He preached it the length and breadth of the
land." "Insidious menace." "Pleasure-seeking, irresponsible, Madi-
son Avenue advocate . . ." Etc.
The three specific complaints of the Santa Ana judge and the
D.A. were a Free Press article and two Playboy issues. The judge
referred to my 1968 Playboy article and the D.A. to the 1966
interview. In other words, I am in prison now for being, among
other things, a Playboy correspondent.
I've done quite a bit of writing and as soon as I'm released
I'll send you some words.
Love and freedom to you all.
Tim Leary
61
April 8 70 Chino
Lifting dumb-bells. Inaudible yoga. Keen-aesthetic. Trick is
to lift until point of delicious pain-strain. Feel biceps moving,
surging with blood and energy. Muscle sound seething with
pleasure. Stroke them. Groove behind lingam power.
PARSON WEEMS
Parson Weems
So it seems
Had footloose dreams
Utopian schemes
Liked to drink his water
From fresh forest streams
Well born son of Merry Land
Been brought up abroad
Ordained minister of the High Episcopal Church of Eng-
land
But born to wander
Cut loose slaves
Hit the road with loving woman in beat-up folk's wagon
Hustling books and God
Long hair flying wind
Down Carolinas to hot, dusty Georgia
Camping out
Bathing naked in forest streams
Parson Weems
So it seems
Had footloose dreams
Utopian schemes
Liked to drink his water
From forest streams
Sitting round the campfire
Fiddling for his bride
Dip feathered pen in battered ink horn
Righting down his-stories
Reading aloud to "good chimney wife."
Raging rivers, snowy blizzards, rainy bivouacs, hub-cap
mud
62
No thing stopped this irresponsible, itinerant preacher of
the open road
Parson Weems
So it seems
Dreamed Utopian schemes
Liked to feel cold water from Cherokee streams
Country fairs, tide-water mansion hospitality
Checking in to roadside inns
Unpacking crate of books
Bibles, classics, pop-favorites, novels, Greek and Latin
texts
And his own funky biographies of George Washington,
William Penn, Benjamin Franklin,
He worshipped Great Folk God and Great Folk Heroes of
the
Republic
Chorus
He wrote as he talked, with sweep and colour, buoyant, impulsive, and
racy, by turns high-flown, bombastic, sprightly, and brisk, recklessly in-
different to facts but with a full-bodied zest. His images were bold and
even Homeric, and along with his unblushing fabrications, much of his
writings abounded in life and truth.
And much of what school children 150 years ago later were
to absorb as the mythic lore of American History was to come
from this long-haired drop-out.
THE NATIONAL ANTHEM
The tune for the Star Spangled Banner was taken from
drinking song popular around 1800. Some of the verses com-
posed in Baltimore tavern.
CHEMICAL WARFARE
The destruction-of American Indian culture was not accom-
plished by physical force. The deliberate strategy was psycho-
pharmacological. The specific tactical weapon was alcohol.
REBEL ENZYMES
The major civilizing agents of the young American Republic
were refugees fleeing religious or political repression. Royal-
ists, Republicans, Quakers, Anarchists, Utopians, imaginative
hustlers. All sorts of freaks were welcome and contributed to
heterogenous, nose-thumbing adventure.
But justice demands that whoever departs from the right way in search
of happiness shall not find his happiness, but lose it. The eternity of the
pains of hell responds to this demand of justice.
63
Overheard on yard Chino Reception and Guidance Center:
"I'd rather go to Quentin than to Soledad."
"Joe looks down today."
"Yeah. He's suffering from a loss of ncouragement."
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
BELOW: OFFENSIVE OR OBSCENE REMARKS OR MA-
TERIALS
Neumann: "I have just performed an experiment that may be of incalculable
consequence to the world, as important as any of the experiments of
Galileo, Newton, Rutherford. Because I had established, to my own satis-
faction, the existence of an unconscious level of purpose inside one.
"Indeed I am sure that you will not be angry with me; for others, as you
are aware, and not I are the guilty cause. And so fare you well, and try
to bear lightly what must needs be; you know my errand," Then bursting
into tears he turned away and went out.
Shorty teld a sad tale.
Sandy cried tried a suicide and almost died.
How?
Lit her bed sheets and her clothes. She wanted to be in the
impatient hospital. Prison's no place for silly, sissy girl.
What beef she riding?
Heroin. Hero-in. Her or in.
THE NEW WORLD VISION
The early American Republic dedicated to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness, was a radical, mind-blowing event
to European intellectuals. Thomas Jefferson was the classic
elegant hippie. To imagine the equivalent effect today one
would envision Buckminster Fuller, Gene McCarthy, John
Lennon, Eldridge Cleaver, Abbie Hoffman being invited by the
natives of an island in the South Pacific to establish a natural
government.
The best young psychedelic minds of the 1810s rightly re-
alized that here was rare opportunity for Utopian visions.
"They dreamed of leaving the old world of falling thrones and rival an-
archies to found a pansocratic society there. One of them would wield an
axe, one would guide a plough, and each would work for all, with posses-
sions in common. In the woods and wilds their wants would be simple
and hardy, and they hoped to create a new literature there, bathed in the
spring of life and nature, that would restore the age of innocence."
This was the free dream of Jeffersonian democracy. But the
greedy and the unfree also came and killed the Indians and
the dreams of innocence.
64
But if threatens man with the pains of hell, must also carry
out the threat if man does not heed it by avoiding sin.
THE BODY POLITIC
Harmonious relations among men and social" groups must
be based with precise mimicry upon the physiological laws
and neurological order of the human body.
This is the lesson of Woodstock. There, for one physical
weekend, a half million souls acted like one body.
65
April 9 70 Chino
Letters waiting gamble excruciating pain game to prisoner.
Thits put on ceil bars around three in morning. If stay awake,
restless try to sleep, but watching for flash light of guard you
are very disappointed when he finally goes by your cell without
stopping. Postage due.
RITE COLLAR TIME
Catholic Mass. New ritual bears little resemblance to Latin
sacrifice of childhood. Low Anglican church? English words
beautiful selected by wholly psychedelic people. Old Chaplain,
ill-at-ease facing congregation, instead hunching over, back to
crowd, frown to read strange English hippie words. Prison
Chaplain classic priest type. Its tan betrayed afternoons on
golf course. The church has always felt comfortable providing
religious reassurances to victims of social system.
Thirty-five-year-old embezzler told great enthusiasm experi-
mental masses, folk masses, home masses.
Surprised when received communion. "You didn't go to
confession, did you?"
"Hell no. The Sacrifice of the Mass Is a communion of the
people. We eat bread to become one with each other and
Christ. That old red-nosed Chaplain can't give me absolution
to share communion. Its not his communion or the bishop's
or the pope's. It ours together with God."
No one is cast into hell unless he has fully and entirely deserved it.
66
April 10 70 Chino
BLIGHT COLLAR CRIME
Heavy metal gloom overhang this griefy place.
Guards walk through it grimly mine foremen, coughing filter
cigarette smoke forty hour week. Faces not happy.
Inmates struggle minute by minute, sunrise midnight pushing
dark iron ball of sorrow. Patience unbelievable. Human will
indominable.
Blacks miraculous. Laughter song never quits. An honor to
live with them. Chicanes are powerful too. Obsidian, Zapotec
hardness.
Angry, self-righteous judge sent me here for being a "plea-
sure seeking irresponsible."
The opposite of pleasure is pain. Prison a gigantic metal
machine designed by pain engineers.
The opposite of irresponsible is not responsible but rather
irresponsive. The irresponsive inflict pain upon the irrespon-
sible.
The sinner perseveres in his evil disposition.
"How do you feel?"
"Quite extraordinary." Zweig waved his hands. "Astonishingly clear.
Everything you say makes me want to make a hundred comments. I feel
as if I could write a book in twenty-four hours ... Do you realize what
you've done? You have produced a drug that could alter the course of
world history . . ."
Neumann raised his hand, interrupting gently:
"Pardon me, but you are mistaken. Neuromysin produces this effect on
you because you have a highly disciplined mind. Your problem is that you
are normally inhibited by the body. You try to think and the body drags
you down. It is like trying to drive a car with the brakes on. Neuromysin
releases the brakes. You have spent fifty years disciplining your mind and
your emotions. Even so, you now show signs of strain and overexcitement.
Imagine what would happen if a completely undisciplined person took the
drug. His mind would be like a zoo with all the cages open total chaos.
His excitement would burn out the motor of his brain."
THIS PARAGRAPH REFERS TO PROBLEMS THAT OCCU-
PIED SEVERAL YEARS OF OUR CONTEMPLATION 1960-66.
PARDON ME, DEAR BROTHER WILSON. OUR PROBLEM IS
67
THAT WE ABNORMALLY INHIBIT OUR BODIES WITH OUR
MINDS. IT'S A CONTINUUM NOT A DICHOTOMY ANYWAY.
YOU-MANN KNOW THAT. AND THE WORD "LIMIT" IS BET-
TER THAN INHIBIT. THE LIMITING LADDER GOES LIKE THIS:
1. MOLECULES LIMIT FREE ENERGY CONSCIOUSNESS
2. CELLULAR CONSCIOUSNESS LIMITS MOLECULAR
CONSCIOUSNESS
3. BODY CONSCIOUSNESS LIMITS CELLULAR CON-
SCIOUSNESS
4. SENSORY CONSCIOUSNESS LIMITS BODY CON-
SCIOUSNESS
5. CONDITIONED MIND LIMITS SENSORY CONSCIOUS-
NESS
6. IMPRINTED EMOTIONS LIMIT MIND ^CONSCIOUS-
NESS
7. COMA LIMITS EMOTIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS
THE TEST OF THIS HYPOTHETICAL SYSTEM IS SIMPLE
PSYCHOCHEMISTRY.
1. TO EMOTIONALIZE A COMATOSE ADMINISTER A
SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM CHEMICAL: AD-
DREAM-ALEEN
2. TO MENTALIZE AN EMOTER ADMINISTER A MENTAL
STIMULANT: METHOD-DREAM
3. TO SENSUALIZE A MENTAL-CASE ADMINISTER A
SENSE-YOU-ALIVER: MERRY WON HER
4. TO EMBODY A SENSUALIZER ADMINISTER A PARA-
SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM CHEMICAL THAT
AROUSES SLEEPING KUNDALINI SERPENT COILED
WITHIN EACH PLEXY CAKRA
5. TO INCELLATE ANY BODY ADMINISTER A STRONG
ORGANIC PSYCHECELLIC ME-CELLEEN, CELLOSIGH-
BEAN.
6. TO ADAMIZE A UNI-CELLER ADMINISTER LIFE-
SURGIC DIE-AMIDE.
THE MIND IS THE BRAKE THAT SLOWS THE BODY.
WE DID IMAGINE WHAT COULD HAPPEN IF A COM-
PLETELY UNDISCIPLINED PERSON TOOK THE DRUG. WE
SAT BY CANDLE LIGHT IN CONCORD PRISON WATCHING
THE MOST DANGEROUS UNCONTROLLED CRIMINALS
LOOSE THEIR MINDS. WE PONDERED THIS QUESTION NAY
AND MIGHT: WHO DESERVES TO TAKE THIS DRUG? WE
OFFERED IT TO THE FULL PROFESSORS AND THEIR
GRANDCHILDREN TOOK IT. WE OFFERED IT TO SENATORS
68
AND CONGRESSMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN VOTED YES.
WE WERE TAUGHT BY LIFE THAT HE TAKES IT WHO TAKES
IT. THIS IS THE ONE CLEAR FACT THAT STANDS OUT OF
OUR EVOLUTIONARY LEAP MEET.
AND THEIR MINDS DID INDEED OPEN LIKE ZOOZ WITH
ALL THE CAGES OPEN AND THIS BECAME THE META-
PHOR OF OUR JOURNEY. OPEN THE CAGE DOORS! LET THE
WILD ANIMALS BE FREE! WHEN THE DOMESTICATED DIS-
COVER THEIR WILD NATURE THE RESULT IS CHAOS ONLY
TO THE ZOO-KEEPER JAILER WITH HIS BRASS RING OF
KEYS. WHEN THE CAGE DOORS OPEN NATURE RULES.
In three weeks in prison all maya needs have been met by
voluntary offerings of friends. Today had just little rolling to-
bacco In jacket. Surly Chicano came up on the yard and asked
tobacco. In a hurry to play handball pretend not to hear.
When I laid jacket down knew he would steal tobacco. After
handball hungry for smoke but package gone.
How perfectly karma works! I have been following the prac-
tice of giving away half of what I am given. But as you stay
here longer you get more self-protective and squirrly. If I had
let him roll a cigarette he wouldn't have stolen the package.
Which he had every right to do.
We must not consider the eternal punishment of hell as a series of separate
or distinct terms of punishment, as if were forever again and again
pronouncing a new sentence and inflicting new penalties, and as if
could ever satisfy his desire for vengeance.
69
April 15 70 Chino
Hell Is, especially In the eyes of , one and indivisible in its en-
tirety; It is but one sentence and one penalty. We may represent to our-
selves a punishment of indescribable Intensity as in a certain sense the
equivalent of an eternal punishment; this may help us to see better how
permits the sinner to fall into hell.
Jittery, skittery, jangly crank freak speed up to me with
dirty-post-cards-ieer-for-sale.
"Hey man, I got something for you to read."
THE OBJECTIVE FORM TO WHICH WE GIVE OUR ATTEN-
TION IS CREATED BY THE VERY ATTENTION WE GIVE TO
IT. THE OBJECTIVE IS BUT THE REFLECTION OF THE SUB-
JECTIVE STATE OF THOUGHT.
THE ENGINE OF THE SUBJECTIVE MIND MUST BE
GUIDED. IT IS NEITHER PERSON, PLACE, OR THING, OF IT-
SELF. IT IS SUBJECTIVE TO THE DESIRE OF MAN. CONSE-
QUENTLY IT HAS FOR HIM ONLY THE POWER HE DECREES
IT HAS.
MAN'S MIND IS THE MIND OF GOD FUNCTIONING AT THE
LEVEL OF MAN'S UNDERSTANDING OF HIS PLACE IN THE
UNIVERSE. MAN CONTACTS THE MIND OF GOD AT THE
VERY CENTER OF HIS BEING.
"I wrote the last one last night in my cell after the lights
were out. In the dark. That's why the handwriting aint so good."
Maya observe this amazing sage astonishment. Shaven head.
Young hoodlum face. FANADDICT RUDEST MONK.
"Good God, man. This is a powerful statement of the human
psychological situation. You have summarized the essence of
Hindu thought in three paragraphs."
Accelerator talk wheels more, but interrupted.
"Would you allow me to copy this right now. My mind de-
crees that this is very powerful."
Sat down manuscript it. COUNT TIME. LOCK UP.
Next day skidded up eagerly hundred files an hour. Papers.
Notes. Nouns. Injectives. Diagrams abstract concepts. God.
Soul. Un-conscious. Maya head spinned. There's a method-
dreen in him madness.
"Hey Brother. Are you cranking down?"
70
El dropped his head contrition. "Yeah. I'll be wound up for
another couple of months I guess."
"Yeah. You could suffocate me with speedy crystal talk
tapes. If I let you."
El grin.
"Make a deal with you. One page a day from now on. O.K."
He nodded. Agree non-do-a-list.
Socrates looked at him and said: "I return your good wishes, and will do
as you bid." Then turning to us, he said, "How charming the man is:
since I have been in prison he has always been coming to see me and
now see how generously he sorrows for me."
In itself it is a rejection of Catholic doctrine to suppose that might
at times, by way of exception, liberate a soul from hell. Thus some were
misled by untrustworthy stories into the belief that the prayers of Gregory
the Great rescued the Emperor Trajan from hell. But now theologians are
unanimous in teaching that such exceptions never take place and never
have taken place, a teaching which should be accepted.
Neumann: "My father soon discovered that, using electrical apparatus, and
small quantities of certain atropine derivatives, it was possible to com-
pletely obliterate some simple habit patterns . . . And when I first learned
of my father's idea of a drug to destroy habit patterns, I was so excited
that I had to go out for a ten mile walk before I could control myself. You
see why? I was obsessed by this notion of man's limitations. Why does
consciousness sometimes blaze into a bonfire that gives us a glimpse of
the superman? . . .
"My father wanted a drug to cure smoking. I wanted a drug to create the
superman ... or rather, to make it easier for the superman to create himself.
"... A man who had come to think of himself as a weakling and a
coward would suddenly realize that he had the power of choice to be a
coward or a hero."
Hippies with hair shaved off don't look so holy. A tough little
kid came today handed story. Its a precisely accurate summary
of what happened to the LSD religion. They destroyed our ex-
ternal symbols in the same way they wiped out Christ, but
faster. Electronics speed things up.
A Man called Lee Stevens Domes
by R. A. Yasso
He drifted in with the wind, from all angeles, a man with
truth in his big eyes, he seemed to be glowing with energy,
lights of all different shapes and colers like a rainbow, some
how I knew him from befor, and I suddenly realized we were
but one, he took me by the hand and I was like a baby serching
for the truth in life, and as I sat with him up here, looking down,
at the earth it was not yet borned, its nakedness was being
71
destory by war, and uncontrolable madness, for power, and
while thinking of a thousand different things, this worryed us
the most, for we might also be destory, but it was not time yet,
he told me, and the years went on the same but it was not
time yet, he told me. Then one beautiful day, while we were up
there looking down again we came upon the system, it was
eveil and they tryed to destory us, by way of brain washing to
conform to its ways of madness we were put In steel cages
with wire all around it, and we were keeped there for years.
But it was not time yet he told me. Then one day the rains
came, and the system was but a few but it was not time yet he
told me. And as life went on the system got biger, and the
wars got biger, now there were steel cages all over, like an
animal trap we were all beinn caught, but the light of wisdom
was there never to leave us, now time has come for all brothers
and sisters to unite as one and slowly pass the light on to
others, so they will see the truth as we have some were ready
and some were not, some could not bear to look at our pure
light and turned Into vegetibles, while others told wild story's
of the energy, fliped out Into the way of the system they were
all eaten up, never to return to the rainbow again. Now only
but a few we keep looking for you to join us up here to give
thanks to the soil that grew, but more to the light that fed
but most of all to Alene and Tim who gave us two sepret sides
of our head, we should go without money, clothing or bread
rather for an instance lose either side of our head. And in the
end the system was no more, every thing was peaceful and
love was with all of us. No more wars, for we knew the power
of the energy and we could see through one an other's minds,
but to some still it got out of controle, now we were all looking
to exspanding our minds so that we may be havery than our
brother's, it just started out with everyone doing their own
thing, now we had to climb higher and higher to escape. They
fliped out, and as I sat with him up here looking down, we both
saw that it would never end and that man will never be satafide
with just anought, now there were people with powers like ours
trying to throw us in steel cages, it was as through we knew
all the time that this sytem would start some day again. And
now I was saying goodbye to Mr. Lee Steven Domes. Thanken
him for the trip we went on hopeing that tomorrow we would
meet again up here, and while following the sun he faded,
and his last words were feed your head, feed your head.
72
April 17 70 Chino
Moved to Honor dorm. Maya bed on tier floor in line with
seventy other beds. Slept last night between two beautiful
Black brothers. Crowded so close maya hand brushes the next
bed.
Before lights out four Blacks crowd around bunk. Rolling
cigarettes for me. Such protective love from the Blacks.
Keep getting young friends in trouble.
Radiant youth sneaked into dorm to talk. Stood there shining
on me. Guard saw rushed to bust him. Took name and ejected
him. This is the story of my life. Oh Robbie and Gretchen and
Heather, nu miss tus three.
RIGHT COLLAR CRIME
There is Black man of forty years four time loser. Sat next
at dinner asked if ever heard of writer named Gurdjieff. Ex-
ploded in amazed pleasure. Fifteen years prison managed to
get a copy of All and Everything.
Eye say >A <Sr E greatest book written in 20th century. He
bubbled with quiet joy, sharing me pleasure.
Had read Ouspensky. Prefers being in prison because can
pursue his work better behind bars. "I get pulled Into reactive
behavior on the outside. I get to be the center of people and
then I get into trouble. Women stir me up a lot. I'm free of all
that in here." In-patient. In-maginary.
His vibrations were old-time dignified Darky Buddha. Spoke
shyly, almost inaudibly words occult.
Whenever went by bunk making notes on piece of paper.
Topics meditate when he got to Folsom. Let me copy them.
Lessons from Nirvana Learn them Learn them
Eliminating Emotional Influences Burn them Burn them
Listening to the Voice of the Spirit Schooling
The Law of Three The Law of Two The Law of Three
Ruling
Overcoming My Emotions Despair Despair
The riddle of the serpent Possible avenues of pursuit of
sex Her voice Her hair
73
Control among Teen-agers Violence
The Peace Sign and Its Effect Silence
Extensive Work on Emotional Control Feel
Knowledge of Real Conversation From Emotional Con-
versation Real
Consciousness and Its Different Levels Hoping
Thinking Beyond the Influence of Emotions Coping
The Fallacy of Equality Heart brake Heart brake
The ball-chain Mode of Existence Created by Emotional
Love Heart brake Heart brake
Thinking About Women Beyond Her Powerful Sex Influ-
ence I miss you
The Biblical verson of the origin of man vs. the Darwinian
Theory Which is better for a metaphor?
The Woman and Her Objective Significance Wait for me
What the American Heritage Means State for me
The meeting of minds Real Communication between Be-
ings Mate for me
The Ego and its Tenacious Grip Power
Spiritual Manifestation Flower
The Power of the Spiritual Force in Man High
The Destruction of One's Self-image Good Bye.
Just to check him out wandered to bunk and asked about
that item "The Woman and Her Objective Significance." Could
hardly hear mumbling words about positive energy of man
negative energy of woman when connected dynamo battery.
Yo said. "Right! That's why it's so hard to be here. I'm electron
without proton." El say "well, my woman is here all the time.
You know these spiritual connections can be stronger than . . ."
74
April 20 70 Chino
Newspaper clipping: New York, (UP!) Sen Barry Goldwater
(R-Ariz.) told college students today that marijuana laws were
too strong, adding, "I have a problem rather close to me."
Goldwater said that he thought the laws were "unfair" and
should be directed for narcotic vendors rather than for the
users.
The new cop-out cliche in blame-game. As long as grass
smokers were Blacks, Mexicans, and hippies give them the
axe. But when our own prep-school, college kids start smoking,
slam the supplier.
The fallacy here is that the vendors of grass are not evil,
nigger Mafia types. Ninety per cent of all marijuana is retailed
by nice young kid next door who buys twenty dollars worth
sells half to friends.
Daughter of wealthy and famous millionaire went to Euro-
pean country recently gave LSD to son of leading politician.
He promptly announced had seen the light, that Father's poli-
tics were wrong, that he was going to become a Hindu, etc.,
etc. After the son was clapped into psychiatric custody, young
Kathy was deported her father notified.
The millionaire father's reaction was typical. He hired private
detectives td find out who gave his daughter the LSD. "I'll see
that he gets life." It turned out to be the son of a U.S. Senator.
IV. Impenitence of the Damned: The damned are confirmed in evil; every
act of their will is evil and inspired by hatred of . Hatred is the
only motive in their power; and they have no choice than that of showing
their hatred of by one evil action in preference to another.
A VERY COUTH FELLOW.
Noticed him day arrived here. Gross, hulking, brutish, sullen.
Ugliest man in joint.
Watched him day by day. All he did glower and chain smoke
lung-collapsing state-issue tobacco. Oh yes, one other thing.
Spent long periods front of mirror scowling combing shock of
colorless hair.
Sat on bench, shoulders slumped, flicking cigarettes. Mental
75
defective? In-becile. Don't play handball or baseball or volley
ball or lift weights or talk anyone. Just sat on bench.
On Sunny Monday first day Taurus sitting next to my shirt.
Decided contact.
"Hey, what's happening?"
Hung head low, blank eyes to me. "As far as I can figure it
out, there's no difference between good and bad. It don't mean
nothing any of it. Does it?"
"What do you mean?" asked cautiously.
"Well they are all just imaginary ideas. Good and bad. Free-
dom or prison. Even life and death."
Eye dizzy expecting low-level, "what's your case?" conver-
sation escalates me up to the top of old Vedic Mt. Meru.
"I see what you mean. It doesn't really make much difference
when you get right down to it."
Shook heavy head. "Man, that's heavy. How many people
here realize that? It really don't make no difference. The only
difference between being in prison and out there is women and
that's . . ."
Eye broke silence. "Yeah. Ninety percent of the emotion in
my life was due to my not understanding her. Loving her.
Fighting her. Wanting her. Escaping her. Making her jealous.
Being jealous. Courting her. Ignoring her. Whew!"
Hand rolling cigarette in wind. I offer tailor made.
"If you could die right now, would you?"
"Depends. Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Suicide such a
messy body crafty mind trip. Now if God were to give you a
simple way out. No sloppy slitting of wrists. Say a button. Just
press it and slip out of it. Would you do it?" I was holding out
my hand pointing to the button.
He leaned away and smiled and shook head. Looked at me
and laughed, eyes sparking rugged, good-looking man.
Eye said, "A French writer named Sartre once said that there
is only one issue in life. To kill yourself or not."
He grinned. "Yeah. But wasn't it a French writer who said
that?"
"Yeah. I said French. Name of Sartre."
"That's right. That's the fellow. Sartre."
Eye was wondering to myself, was it Camus? Who is this
guy anyway?
"Well If there's no good or bad. What is there?"
Eye looked up at the sun. "There's energy. That's all there
is. It comes in all sorts of pretty packages. You can groove be-
hind it or struggle with It. Or call it different names or assign
different emotional meanings to it. But that doesn't affect it.
76
I like those moments when you are in the flow of it. Not happy
up or sad down. But with it. Being energy. Serene bliss. Those
are the moments."
He nodded.
"Like right now. We had It going for a second here in the
sunshine."
He listen not response.
"What's your name."
"My name is uncouth."
"What! Common!"
"Well that's not my original name, but that's what people
call me."
"Do you know what uncouth means?"
"Yeah. It means gross. Crude. You told me that."
"I told you that!"
"Sure. I came up to you and asked you what couth meant.
And you said 'Uncouth means gross or crude,' but you didn't
know what couth meant."
WRITE COLLAR CRIME
As eye type these notes always aware that eye am commit-
ting illegal act. Constant glancing-up reflex of in-security.
These notes are contraband. You reader. Watch out!
The retrobate carries in himself the primary cause of impenitence; it is
the guilt of sin which he committed on earth and with which he passed
Into eternity.
In office used by trustee Inmates big red numbers on wall.
Days of the month. Each number pinned separately to wall.
Each day remove number. Eye noticed big red arrow pointed
to morrow. There is no number for today. Ask the trustee, how
come there is no number for today?
Laughed and said, "In con terminology, when you wake up
in the morning. That day is over."
Fifth in line for the San Francisco Chronicle and second in
line for the Los Angeles Times. Enjoy the weak old Chronicle
better than the day old Times.
Our religious teachings caught on very fast. Mohammed after
ten years had fifteen co-worshippers, including his wife and
two slaves. After ten years Rosemary and eye share fifteen
million or fifty million or one hundred and fifteen million
co-worshippers and no slaves no churches. No tax deduct-
able procedures. Wherever and when ever people meet in
small groups to get high, turn off social and turn on timeless,
77
converse silently God to God, light candles, engage in that
special form of telepathy known only to psychedelic dopers,
well then and there our religion Is in session. Rosemary and
I and our friends are there. And whenever Rosemary and I
sit by the fire and get high and become one with all . . . you
are there with us, brothers and sisters. That is our religion.
It will take society ten years to start catching up with our
political prophecies and prescriptions. The Politics of Ecstasy.
It would not be Intrinsically impossible for to move the damned to
repentance; yet such a course would be out of keeping with the state of
final reprobation. The opinion that the refusal of all grace and of
every Incitement to good is the proximate source of impenitence, is upheld
by many theologians, and in particular by Molina.
It will take psychology twenty-five years to catch up with
problems studied at Millbrook. It got lonely and boring weight-
ing around.
We decided that all was to live our love and create new life.
The prison guards re-tired army enlisted men Motel Man-
agers. Herd us dining room. Lock unlock doors. Walk tiers at
night, fat-igued, pot-bellied men with flashlights slipping mail
under cell doors. Their work centers around keys.
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: DRAWING PICTURES OR OTHERWISE
ORNAMENTING THE STATIONERY OR ENVELOPE
78
April 21 70 Chino
Let the punishment fit the time.
Paviovian conditioning and learning theory teaches that the
pain must be directly relevant and immediate.
After year time prison inmate forgotten his crime, his arrest,
his trial, his judge, his defender.
Just doing time. Storing up bitter supply of sullen anger.
SMITE COLLAR CRIME
Six months wondering about Charles Man Son.
He was, of course, the crushing blow to the exoteric hippie
movement.
After Man Son, anyone who looked like Christ was suspect
of being a ritual murderer.
Even my Mother turned to me and said, "You're not like
that Manson are you?"
Why Man Son Why? I have refrained from comment on Man
Son because I didn't understand. He had clearly transcended
something social. It seemed impossible that it could be an
LSD transcendance. But one must be cautious. LSD teaches
us that nothing makes any difference. But why sense-less kill-
ing of innocents?
I may be experienced just a whiff of his life trip.
Charles Manson spent half of his thirty-five years in prison.
Not a hippy cult leader! He is a well-rounded product of
the American penal system. Ph.D. graduate of our correctional
process.
System so brutal, so impersonally lethal of tender human
feeling, so precisely designed to increase helplessness inevi-
table Paviovian product is Hatred.
It is completely impossible to do a long prison term and
not have moments of fierce, blind, murderous, cold blood rage.
At whom? This choice you and your chance robot reactivity
will decide. At anyone in a system that passively allows such
things to happen.
It maddens thoughtful convict to know that everyone admits
the system Is wrong. That the system creates crime. That the
system encourages homosexual rape. Cynicism. Murder.
79
"Just talking to a guy come in from Soledad. There have
been seventeen murders there in the last three months."
When they chained us up to Vacaville the bus stopped to
unload some YA's (Youth Authority cases) at Tracy. At Chino
several of them had hung around me. For protection. They
were scared. They knew what awaited them at Tracy. They
shaved long hair to look ugly as possible. Worked out feverishly
with the weights to build up tough-looking muscles. Open
smiles turned to frowns.
As they were chained out of the bus into the receiving tank
the Tracy guards inspected them carefully. Stock-yard man-
agers look over incoming cattle. Guards pot-bellied, slack
jowls. Drool at the mouth. One said,
"Fine crop of juicy, soft-skinned boys, eh Marvin."
Thits all laugh salaciously.
There is no one who will publicly justify this system. And
yet it goes on, and on and on and on.
And the sentences get longer and longer.
And every step that is taken by liberal legislators to humanize
the system just makes the bureaucratic burden heavier. For
example it costs between $300 and $600 to accomplish psycho-
logical diagnosis which has no effect on rehabilitation or short-
ening sentence, but which, on paper, gives the illusion of pro-
gressive custody.
Each day the prisoner is confronted with dozen crushing
examples of callousness. Inevitably there comes a moment of
nihilistic murderous rage. The Insidious smell of murder. You
can no more escape it than you can escape the scent of
petroleum in a gas refinery. This prison is an assembly-line
factory geared up to produce murderous rage.
Wash it off in shower.
Pervasive sweat stink mattress. How many tortured men
tossed turned dreamed bloody nightmare dream on me musty
brown lumpy bedding?
Charles Manson. Seventeen years behind the bars. Two
hundred and four months. Six thousand, two hundred and nine
nights lying on bed raging.
Charles Manson? Image and likeness of God?
Why kill? Prison system took child, reared him, trained him,
guided him boy to man. Now glories in him super-wicked-
hippie star of nightly television.
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: NO ONE ON THE OUTSIDE REMEMBERS
YOU ANYMORE
80
". . . The first effects of the drug were beyond anything I had imagined.
My perceptions became as clear and fresh as those of a child ... My
senses became Incredibly keen, and at the same time, my memory began
to function with a power and exactitude that I had never known before . . .
". . . Then the reaction began ... My senses were abnormally sharp,
but I was no longer able to ignore things that irritated me ... i had for-
gotten or never realized how much of our living is a habit including
breathing . . . Every time I did something, 1 was aware of myself doing it.
I was aware that I could choose to do it or not.
"... I had a strange sensation that everything in the world was real
except myself. I felt like a vacuum. And at the same time, it seemed as
though I was in the middle of an immense desert a desert of freedom.
For the first time I realized that man needs his habits to save him from
too much freedom that freedom is potentially man's most dangerous
enemy ... I realized what Heidegger meant when he said that man can
only know true freedom in the face of death. Because death is the ultimate
threat, the ultimate limitation. It makes man aware of his purpose, his
desire to live. I realized suddenly: it is not freedom that man needs. He
already has more than he can use. It is a vision of purpose."
Thus St. Thomas teaches that the chief cause of impenitence is
justice which refuses the damned every grace.
According to Durrell, Socrates last words: "Please the Gods,
let the laughter keep breaking through."
Here the Blacks laugh. The Chicanes smile and scowl. The
whites are brave in defeat.
Black voices vibrate through room. Singing. Chuckling.
The damned are ashamed of their folly which led them to seek happiness
in sin, but not of the malice of sin itself.
There is much meditation about woman. Everyone here
wrestling her. The real deprivation loss of contact with women.
Jackie Kennedy as MIss-ic Goddess. Image scrambling out
of car in Dallas. Haunting. Not motherly. Power marriage.
Tantric solution. Be-come one person, one intercoiled body,
one golden harp of feeling, walking forest holding hands we
see twin trees. Telepathy silver key to woman's liberation.
At county jail, brief twenty minute visit through glass. Rose-
mary intense. Leans forward loye melt glass. "I'll free you, my
love." Magnificent, all-encompassing promise.
Long term prison sentences make no psychological sense.
What does ten years mean as deterrent?
As the police close in on Neumann, the philosopher Zweig and his friends
discuss smuggling him out of the country.
81
"He Is anxious to keep his experiments with neurocaine a secret. If it
leaked out he would have every newspaper reporter and every crank in
the world interrupting his work. Besides, imagine the forces that would
oppose him. All the tobacco companies, to begin with. All the liquor com-
panies. Most of the medical profession, including the psychiatrists. Don't
you see that secrecy is of the utmost importance? All that he needs now
is privacy and money."
But we must do as he says, Crito; let the cup be brought, if the poison is
prepared; if not let the attendant prepare some.
V. Poena Damni: The poena damni, or pain of loss consists in a complete
separation of all the powers of the soul from that it cannot find
in even the least peace and rest.
82
April 22 70 Chino
Waiting all day for Calif Supreme Court grant bail.
Main function of human life? Wise Ingestion of drugs.
Life chemical transformation process. Men chemical trans-
formation organism designed by God to produce harmonious
love.
Basic activity of life? Righteous selection of chemicals in-
gest. Molecules we put in bodies determine quality and quan-
tity of living. Food. Drink. Air. Medicines. Neurological vitamins.
Bfotics (including spermatozoa.)
Social psychological harmony depends entirely on psycho-
tropic drugs Intake. There is a drug to produce any psycho-
logical, social, or spiritual state.
Function of education: teach people how to use drugs; i.e.
how to manage bodies and nervous systems.
Only hope is dope.
The pain of loss is not the mere absence of superior bliss, but it is also
a most intense positive pain.
Young Black came see Don today. Just returned from hard
pen, en route freedom. Behind Don's encouragement prepared
simple writ pointing out obvious error in case. Appeals court
accepted. Court appointed lawyer got case reversed.
Glow of love joy in room incandescent.
Then came a postcard announcing that writ which Joe and
Don spent week preparing receive immediate audience by
Supreme Court. Lucky prisoner hardly talk, voice trembling
Triumph in club house.
"It's these victories that give us hope that there is some
meaning and compassion in the system," said Don.
"Yet," said Crito, "the sun is still upon the hilltops, and many a one has
taken the draught late; and after the announcement has been made to him
he has eaten and drunk, and indulged in sensual delights; do not hasten
then, there is still time."
Their consciousness that , on whom they entirely depend, is their
enemy forever, is overwhelming. Their consciousness of having by their own
83
deliberate folly forfeited the highest blessings for transitory and delusive
pleasures humiliates and depresses them beyond measure,
"The main obstacle to telepathy is our habit of communicating by speech,"
YES, BROTHER COLIN WILSON. THE MAIN OBSTACLE
TO TELEPATHY IS OUR HABIT OF THINKING CONTINUALLY.
WHEN YOU TURN OFF YOUR MIND YOU ARE RECEP-
TIVE TO NON-SYMBOLIC MESSAGES. IT IS ALMOST IMPOS-
SIBLE TO TELE-COMMUNICATE SYMBOLS. IN THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE? REALLY.
(Zweig makes a try at it.] ". . . human beings make some subtle mistake
when they look at the world. The way we see the world is a lie. That is a
complete misconception. I suppose this is what I came to mean by original
sin."
ORIGINAL SIN IS THE IMPRINT.
"Now my task as a philosopher has always been to find the source of this
error. I was sure that it would only require some tiny adjustment like
turning the knob on the side of a microscope and everything would
suddenly rush into focus . . . Well I have devoted my life to trying to
discover the principle of this focus. I have always believed that it is the
work of the philosopher to undo original sin."
GOOD STUFF, BROTHER WILSON. THE METAPHOR OF
MICROSCOPE IS PRECISELY EXACT. THERE IS A FOCUS
WHICH CAN ADJUST THE LEVEL OF AWARENESS. ONE
NOTCH ON THIS ONTOLOGICAL MICROSCOPE FOCUSES ON
THE REALITY OF THE IMPRINT AND ITS ASSOCIATED CON-
DITIONED ASSOCIATIONS. BUT THERE ARE MANY OTHER
FOCI. YOU TURN THE KNOB BY TURNING YOUR HEAD.
The desire for happiness inherent in their very nature, wholly unsatisfied
and no longer able to find any compensation for the loss of in
delusive pleasure, renders them utterly miserable.
Don typing copy ACLU brief for my appeal.
Laughs in joy at legal beauty.
"When I get out I swear I'm going to donate a portion of
my salary to the ACLU. They need money don't they?"
"Always."
Take him off on long rap. Invisible brotherhood of Freedom
people. All over world. High places low. Always recognize each
other. Come to each other's rescue.
How Brotherhood extends in time. Jefferson. Voltaire. Soc-
rates.
Later on work in next office calls me. Grinning. "You make
me so buoyant. You cheer me up telling me about the brother-
hood."
84
Laugh, delight perfect Zen circle we create.
"Far out, Don. I come here to this gloomy place and find
that you and Joe have created a full-functioning, authentic
cell of Freedom Brotherhood. You rescue me. Tune me into
it. I put it into words. Spell out verbally what you are doing
and you are pleased and surprised. We are here to remind
ourselves who we are and why we are here."
Moreover they are well aware that is Infinitely happy, and hence
thfeir hatred and Impotent desire to injure fills them with extreme
bitterness.
Handballing in sun. Thinking beloved wife. Yoni. Seed.
Flower. Conscious creation of New Life. Miracle of conscious
procreation. Divine love made flesh and come, Divine Child,
to dwell amongst us.
Next few days bring decision. Will I dwell in loving life with
her or spend the rest of strife In metal cage? Hands tremble.
Restless.
On the line for lunch. A sad looking young Black man shakes
his head.
"Too much punishment for too little crime."
85
April 23 70 Chino
Moved into single cell.
Great serenity. Quiet.
Sleep soundly. But awake drenched with sweat. I'm still on
death row.
Rosy dawn. Watch red sun over the eastern mountains.
Has there ever been a religion which commanded its wor-
shippers to watch the sun rise in the morning and set In
evening?
Powerful, demanding rewarding ritual.
And the same is true with regard to their hatred of all the friends of
who enjoy the bliss of heaven. The pain of loss is the very core of eternal
punishment.
The moment when you realize that you are out there (here)
as far as anyone has ever been. Beyond maps, beyond radio
contact, beyond the manual of Instructions, Holy Mary, Mother
of God, pray for us.
Socrates said: "Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in doing
thus, for they think that they will gain by the delay; but I am right in not
doing thus; for I do not think that I should gain anything by drinking the
poison a little later; I should be sparing and saving a life which is already
gone; I could only laugh at myself for this. Please then to do as I say,
and not to refuse me."
[Neumann discussing his friend GeorgI:]
". . . he suspected that every human being who has ever lived has wasted
his life completely ... he meant that if all human life has contained a
certain basic error, then the man who realized this would be completely
alone. He could speak to no one. Other people could only confuse his
certainty. Well, when I became convinced that he was right, I also knew
that I would have to work alone."
ANOTHER PROBLEM, DEAR BROTHER WILSON, WHICH
WE WORKED ON FOR SOME TIME. IT IS TRUE THAT IN THE
PAST ONLY A FEW MEN IN ANY CENTURY WOULD FIGURE
OUT THE PROBLEM.
THE "ERROR" BY THE WAY IS IMPRINTING. AT THE
MOMENT OF IMPRINTING THE MAMMAL COMMITS HIM-
SELF TO A BASIC PLUS AND A BASIC MINUS. APPROACH-
86
GOOD. AVOID-BAD. CONDITIONING THEN BUILDS UP THE
CLUSTERS OF ASSOCIATIONS THAT COMPRISE MIND. BUT
IT IS TRUE THAT MIND BEING BASED ON THE ORIGINAL
IMPRINT IS BASICALLY "WRONG," WELL WHY USE SUCH
MORAL TERMS. THE ORIGINAL IMPRINT, OR FIRST AND
BASIC ONTOLOGICAL STEP IS "WEIRD." ACCIDENTAL, UN-
CONSCIOUS. YOUNG ANIMALS HAVE IMPRINTED PLASTIC
BASKETBALLS, REMEMBER. THE BASIC REALITY ISSUE
THEN REVOLVES AROUND WHAT IS GOOD AND BAD IN
RESPECT TO BASKETBALLS.
THE INSIGHT WHICH YOU REFER TO IS ALWAYS DUE
TO THE TRANSCENDENCE OF IMPRINTING. IN THE PAST
THIS WAS USUALLY ACCIDENTAL, OFTEN RELATED TO
PSYCHOSIS. AND THE FEW MEN WHO MADE THE NEURO-
LOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH SEPARATED IN SPACE-TIME
SO THAT THEY DID, IN FACT, FEEL ALONE.
OUR SITUATION, THAT IS THE SITUATION WHICH YOU
DESCRIBE IN YOUR NOVEL AND WHICH WE HAVE BEEN
ACTUALLY LIVING OUT, IS DIFFERENT. THE NEW DRUGS
SUSPEND IMPRINTING. ONCE NEUMANN TURNS ON SOME-
ONE ELSE HE IS NO LONGER ALONE. WHEN YOU TURN
ON WITH SOMEONE ELSE YOU PROVIDE FOR THE POSSI-
BILITY OF A MUTUAL IMPRINT. WE IMPRINT EACH OTHER.
THUS THE NEW ONTOLOGICAL OR NEUROLOGICAL MAR-
RIAGE. THE ONTOLOGICAL BROTHERHOOD. THE NEURO-
LOGICAL FAMILY. NOW CONSIDER OUR DILEMMA. HOW
MANY PEOPLE SHOULD WE TURN ON?
[Zweig deplores the fact that he has wasted his life thinking about the
problem.] "Tonight, when Gustav [Neumann] gave me the taste of neuro-
mysin, I knew I had made a mistake. There is another way. Gustav has
spent his life pursuing it. Instead of using his intellect alone, Gustav has
returned to the body. He has recognized In fact what I have only recog-
nized in theory that part of the problem is purely physical."
PUT IT THIS WAY, DEAR FRIEND. THE PROBLEM IS BIO-
CHEMICAL AND THE SOLUTION MUST, THEREFORE BE
BIO-CHEMICAL.
THE INTELLECTUAL PROBLEM IS VERY SIMPLE. JUST
UNDERSTAND THE LAST SENTENCE AND ACT ON IT
IT HAS AMAZED ME THAT PSYCHOLOGISTS AND PHIL-
OSOPHERS REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE OBVIOUS FACT
THAT LSD IS TO PSYCHOLOGY & RELIGION WHAT THE
MICROSCOPE WAS TO BIOLOGY. IT WILL ONCE AGAIN
ROUTINELY REQUIRE A NEW GENERATION TO CATCH ON.
IT ALSO ASTONISHES ME THAT PSYCHOLOGISTS AND
PHILOSOPHERS CAN READ ABOUT THE IMPRINT EXPERI-
87
MENTS AND NOT APPLY THEM TO THE GENESIS OF HUMAN
PSYCHOLOGY. IT DOES REQUIRE THE ACCEPTANCE OF
THE NOTION OF THE RELATIVITY OF ONTOLOGIES. YOU
HAVE TO ADMIT THAT THERE ARE MANY LEVELS OF
;^EALITY AND THAT THE REALITY EACH HUMAN BEING
ACCEPTS IS A BIOCHEMICAL ACCIDENT. THE PSYCHOLO-
GIST CANT ADMIT THIS ABOUT HIS PATIENTS BECAUSE
HE WOULD THEN HAVE TO ACCEPT THE FACT THAT THE
PRINCIPLE APPLIES TO HIMSELF. THE NOTION OF RE-IM-
PRINTING (WHICH I FIRST DESCRIBED IN A FOREWORD TO
SOLOMON'S BOOK ON LSD) IS THE REDEEMING, JOYOUS,
DIVINITY-PRODUCING NOTION THAT SAVES THE WHOLE
ONTOLOGICAL GAME.
VI. Poena Sensus: The poena sensus, or pain of sense consists in the
torment of so frequently mentioned in the Holy Writ. The demons
suffer the torment of even when, by permission, they leave
the confines of hell and roam around earth. In what manner this happens
is uncertain.
275 ASA 166 Taylor v. San Bernadino Superior Court
GARDNER, Pro Tern: At 5 a.m., police officers arrested
defendant for a vehicle mechanical violation. After it had
been ascertained that there was an outstanding arrest
warrant against him for another traffic offense, he was
placed under arrest on the traffic warrant. At police re-
quest, deft, removed the contents of his pockets. His
cigarette lighter was taken apart, and in a recessed area
a useable quantity of hashish was found. Deft, had not
consented to the inspection of this inside area. Charged
with the resulting offense, deft, moved for PenC 1538.5
suppression of evidence. His motion was denied, and he
now sought prohibition. Writ DENIED.
(1) Deft's constitutional rights were not violated when the
police officer ordered him to empty his pockets prior to
a pat down search. (2) The original taking of the cigarette
lighter by the police was not unreasonable. While it may
not qualify as a weapon in the traditional sense, It could
have been thrown at the officer or used to burn him. (3)
The search of the lighter was not unreasonable. The offi-
cer testified of his past experience in finding razor blades
concealed within Zippo-type lighters.
After breakfast, the sergeant's clerk, sturdy, executive elite
con named Milton, walk to bed. "Leary. Were you expecting
some kind of Supreme Court action?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I should hear today."
88
"Well ! just heard on the radio that they shot you down.
Denied your appeal. You and Huey Newton."
Don't remember what said.
"Sorry to tell you bluntly this way, but you might as well
know about it right away."
"Its all up to Justice Douglas now," eye sad.
Spent the daze of gloom. Our life now depends upon one
man with a pace-making machine in noble heart. William O.
Douglas. Naturalist. Rebel. Friend of youth. Mountain man.
Liberal. Outspoken libertarian. Solace of persecuted. Last hope
of friendless. Husband of young girl. Hiker. Protector of wild
flowers and clear mountain streams.
Milton arranged for me to move off crowded, bed-to-bed
chaos "skid-row" to private cell. "I'm changing my own job
tomorrow," he said. "This is my last act in this old job."
Recline monadic peace of single cell read newscapers. Full
of stories about impeachment of Justice Douglas. Our life
comes before him at most crucial time in his life. If frees us
will bring down on head more angry outcry. Television soap
opera.
VII. Accidental Pains of the Damned: According to theologians the pain
of the loss and the pain of the sense constitute the very essence of hell,
the former being by far the most dreadful part of eternal punishment. But
the damned also suffer various "accidental" punishments.
Crito when he heard this, made a sign to the servant; and the servant went
in, and remained for some time, and then returned with the jailer carrying
the cup of poison. Socrates said: "You, my good friend, who are experi-
enced in these matters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed."
We'll know in five days whether we are to live and flourish
in love or to die in prison cell.
Picked up paper and read story about torture in Greek
prisons. The picture illustrating the story was Jean-Paul David's
oil painting celebrating "The Death of Socrates." The bawdy
pleasure-seeking irresponsible Athenian, reclining on a couch,
left hand raised in the "V" of peace, right 'hand holding the
hemlock. Surrounded by friends.
The cosmic script-writers never miss a trick, do they?
To day of dangerous gloom predicted by the horoscope-
Thursday, April 23, 1970: Moon quincunx Sun: Good fortune
may seem to be extremely far away.
Moon opposition Mars: Destructive emotions can reach a
peak of dangerous intensity.
89
And its going to get worse:
Friday, April 24, 1970: Moon quincunx Saturn: If a problem
can neither be escaped nor solved, get a fresh view.
Saturday, April 25, 1970: Sun parallel Saturn: It has been
accurately said that when the bottom is reached, there is
nowhere to go but up.
Sunday, April 26, 1970: Rosemary's thirty-fifth birthday. (Mari-
anne died on my thirty-fifth birthday.)
Moon quincunx Mars: The services of authority could be
the prescription for danger.
Mars trine Uranus: Get out with your mate for jaunts to see
interesting new sights and scenery.
Monday, April 27th: Venus opposition Neptune: Distances
between loved ones may be sad but closed by affectionate
communication.
Tuesday, April 28th 1970: Mercury parallel Venus. Learn
how to be a specialist In the art of charming with words of
honey.
Wednesday, April 29th 1970
Jupiter sem'tile Neptune: Time 8:39 a.m. E.S.T. Here it is!!!
RECEIVING SPECIAL CONSIDERATION COULD BE THE
EQUIVALENT OF FINDING A GOLD MINE IN THE SKY
Moon parallel Sun, 1:45 p.m. P.S.T.: THOSE WHO RANK
HIGH SHOULD BE RECEPTIVE TO YOUR SCIENTIFIC IDEAS
Jupiter enters Libra, 9:52 p.m., P.S.T.
Thursday April 30, 1970
Moon sextile Saturn: 6:48 p.m. P.S.T. WHEN AT LAST ALL
IS IN GOOD ORDER, SATISFACTION MAY BE ENJOYED
Sitting desk 3:00 p.m. Thursday April 23, probing future.
Comforted. Praying. Om. I love you.
The damned never experience even the least real pleasure.
"In depth" interview with counselor this morning. Think
beforehand about what to say.
Only choice. Try make her feel good. Try make most memo-
rable, life-changing experience of both our lives.
Interview dis-appointment. For hour and half she pore over
folder, frowning. Making sure not missed vital statistic in long
complicated life.
She shake head sighing.
She finally got around to the basic question. Sorrowful
puzzlement. "Is it necessary for people to smoke marijuana
and take LSD to find religious meaning?"
"It's a completely individual personal matter, this decision
90
as to what you need to turn you on to God and beauty and
meaning. One man needs sunshine, another, prayer, another
the special smile in your eyes. It is only necessary that you
be true to the grace that works for you and not cop out ori it."
The retrobate must live in the midst of the damned, and their outbursts of
hatred or of reproach as they gloat over his sufferings, and their hideous
presence are an ever fresh source of torment.
91
April 24 70 Chino
Waves of nervousness come. On days expecting news. Hands
wet. Need to move. Caged animal. White man's busy-ness due
to bad-nerves. Whitey cage him own wild animal in offices.
Jangles serene body nature with him nervousness. When
Blacks caged sing and laugh and wait.
92
April 26 70 Chino
Immobilized paralysis. Low energy. Waiting. No juice start
new project. Love sick. Incredible experience. ^ Koestler in
Franco prison waiting each day to learn if he would be
marched out to firing squad. What effect will this brush with
the shadow of death have on our future life? Just want to enjoy
simple things with love.
Elderly guard suddenly gets on me. Orders me sideburned
to barber. Get hour shampoo-massage. Enemy sideburner not
satisfied. Orders me back. Look from second tier down upon
it. It is almost completely bald with white stubble around its
ears and neck. It doesn't like me.
Mention to my gurus. Laugh. "There are several guards here
who are really down on you. Blame you for all the problems
of the young. They say you don't deserve equal treatment."
Equal treatment! The bizarre effects institutional inertia. I
live here with a thousand men whose misery so great wonder
how endure. Marvel at the callousness of guards. No equal
share of suffer.
Watching reaction of guards. About a third go out of their
way to be friendly. They are younger. About a third pay no
attention. And a third go out of way to be mean. They are
older.
VIII. Characteristics of the pains of hell: The pains of hell differ in degree
according to demerit. This holds true not only of the pain of sense, but
also of the pain of loss.
Here more philosophy and more poetry hear than on the
outside.
Middle-class educated prisoners tend to be here on sex
beefs. Wife murder. Varieties of rape. Musty franks of child
molesting.
Really we are all MDSO's. Mentally disordered sex offenders.
The punishment is emasculinization.
93
April 27 70 Chmo
Waiting. Waiting. Waiting for Life Sentence. Justice Wil-
liam O. Douglas considering where and when and how we
shall die.
His character and actions dominate newspapers these days.
At this time deciding our fate has become most magnetized-
polarized personality in country. Hearst paper cartoon pictures
him as tiny infantile-senile clown. Times features a picture
of the nobleman and his beautiful young wife during a twenty-
mile hike taken to preserve a little river in Maryland.
He two born under sign of Libra.
Yesterday was Rosemary's birth anniversary. Soon celebrate
re-birthday.
Final step before transfer out of this boot-camp to your
"permanent" prison is the assignment of "Legal Status."
Diploma-report card listing penitential condition.
The man answered: "You have only to walk around until your legs are
heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act." At the same time
he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easiest and gentlest manner,
without the least fear or change of color or feature, looking at the man
with all his eyes, as his manner was, took the cup and said: "What do you
say about making a libation out of this cup to any God? May I, or not?"
The pains of hell are essentially immutable; they are not temporary in-
termissions or passing alleviations. A few theologians and Fathers, in par-
ticular the poet Prudentius, expressed the opinion that on stated days,
grants the damned a certain respite, and that besides this the
prayers of the faithful obtain for them other occasional intervals of rest.
The Church has never condemned this opinion in express terms. But now
theologians ar6 justly unanimous in rejecting it. St. Thomas condemns it
severely (in IV Sent,: dist. xiv, Q.xxix, c 1.1)
WHERE TO HAVE A PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE
The best places are holy grounds, riverbanks, caves, sites
of pilgrimage, the summits of mountains, confluents of rivers,
sacred forests, solitary groves, the shade of the Bel tree,
valleys, places overgrown with Tuisi plants, pasture lands,
icmples of Siva without a bull, the foot of a sacred fig tree,
or of an Amalaki tree, cowsheds, islands, sanctuaries, the shore
94
of the sea, one's own house, the abode of one's teacher, places
which tend to inspire single-pointedness, lonely places free
from animals. Gandharva-tantra
PREPARATION FOR A PSYGHEDELIC EXPERIENCE
The purification of the person of the worshipper consists in
bathing. The purification of the subtle elements of the body
is done through breath control, and through the dedication of
the six main parts of the body to the six deities to which they
correspond.
The purification of the place of worship is done by cleaning
it carefully, adorning it with an auspicious ornamentation using
five colors, placing cushions, a canopy, using Incense, lights,
flowers, garlands. All this must be done by the worshippers
themselves.
Meditating on Tantra.
Worship of the female energy. Sakti. Wife of Siva.
She rests curled at the bottom of the spine.
She unfolds through the seven levels of orgasm: Sex. Elmi-
nation. Digestion. Circulation. Respiration. Sensation. Cerebral.
"Oh, beloved, having pierced the entire kula path, in the
thousand petaled lotus you sport in secret with your lord."
(The cosmos as mirrored in the body. Evolves in seven
stages which are described as the seven levels of erotic-somatic
consciousness.)
In the house of sleep to tidy up clutter of day.
Sleeping consciousness. Classic cartoon: old cleaning
woman with broom under her arm leaning over president's
desk punging soapy comments on daily male.
Last evening read Tantra.
During night lingam erection.
Sunrise out of bed to make notes on Tantric meaning of
language.
To eroticize all of life (and what else is there to do?) we
must be sure that our language reflects energy situation. Bi-
sacred.
Our western language reflects impers9nal rape. Subject-
predicate-object.
I do you. You do me. He does her. She does him. We do
them. You do us. They do them.
And a queer bewildering croak we make of the passive
voice: I am being done to. You are being done to. She is being
done to. We are being done to. They are being done to.
The active-passive voices should murmur reciprocal words.
Ah there. Yes. Inaudible meshing.
95
Active: I do. I love. I touch. I taste. I hear. I see. I hurt.
Passive: I dews. I loves. I touches. I tastes. I hears. I hurts.
The man answered: "We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we
deem enough." "I understand," he said, "yet I may and must pray to the
gods to prosper my journey from this to the other world may this then,
which is my prayer, be granted to me." Then, holding the cup to his lips,
quite readily and cheerfully he drank the poison.
However, accidental changes in the pains of hell are not excluded. Thus
it may be that the retrobate is sometimes less tormented by his surroundings.
It's very clear
Our love is here
To stay
Not for a year
Forever and
A day
The radio . . . and
The telephone . . . and
The movies
That we know
May just be passing fancies
And
In time
May go . . . but oh My dear
Our love
Is here
To stay
Together we're
Going a long, long way
In time
The Rockies may crumble
Gibralter may tumble
They're only made of clay ... but
Our love
Is here
To stay
Power of imprint-folk song: At the darkest, darkest moment
suddenly found myself whistling this song.
96
April 29 70 Chino
Funny sad vacation planning discussions selecting prisons.
Tehachapl in the mountains. Fresh air. All new buildings. But
remote. CMC East. Private ceils with key. Golf course. Swim-
ming pool. CIM color TV, golf course. Swimming pool. Treat-
ment oriented. Thits call you "Mister." Quentin: near San Fran-
cisco. Good medical care. Four big yards. Lots of room to
move around. Contact visits. Forestry camps: work hard out-
side. All the dope you want. Folsom: good place to do time.
Old long term professional cons. Quiet. Soledad: dread scene.
Gladiator school. Thits issue you wooden sword and garbage
can lid. When friend tells: I'm on the list to ship out. Where
are you going? Soledad. Long pause. What to say. Well, it's
not so bad. It's what you make it, right?
THE BASIC ISSUE OF THE CENTURY:
COMA OR SOMA
HUMOR
Humor may be defined as that within us. Within us. Which
sets up a kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and
the expression of that sense in art, in art.
The word thus means either something within ourselves, as
when we speak of a "man of humor," or something objective,
as in speaking of a comedy "full of humor." Speak of a man
of humor.
The element of kindliness, of kindliness, is essential to
humor. There must not only be perception of the peculiarities,
the contrasts, the shortcomings which lead to incongruous
effect, but there must be a tolerant acceptance of them. A
tolerant acceptance of them.
The word "humor" has carried down through the language
of Europe a peculiar etymology. In origin it means "wetness,"
in origin it means wetness, and is of the same source as
"humidity."
At the dawn of medical science, medical science, (this Is
Important) medical science, Hippocrates (c. 400 B.C.) recog-
97
nized four chief currents or "humors" in the human body:
phlegm, blood, choler, black bile.
If the flow of each was normal, a man was said to be in
good "humor," but if irregular, then disease (dis-ease) ap-
peared and the man was in an "ill humor."
The decline of medical knowledge, DECLINE OF MEDICAL
KNOWLEDGE, threw the term into a vague significance of
good and bad condition and presently to caprice or whim
occasioned by one's condition.
Soma was the inspiration of the Vedas. The Vedas are the
source of all human philosophy. When Soma was no longer
available, the key to the Vedas was lost. When the key to the
Vedas was lost, man was rudderless.
While eye copy this item from the Encyclopedia in the Chino
prison library a middle-aged convict say to me, "Hey, isn't
your name Reilly?" "Indeed it is," I reply.
"I've seen you somewhere before."
"Indeed you have," I sigh.
"Let's see. Reilly. Reilly. Were you ever in the Old County
Jail in LA.?"
"Not L.A. T.V." I sly.
He said. "Of course. Tim Reilly. Narcotics! Right."
Put me finger to maya mouth. "Shh." I dread.
"How much time did you bring?" he solicitates.
"Enough, I hope," sez eye.
American humor is characterized by a detachment from
traditional reverences and conventional beliefs.
Hippocratic principle. Basis of all psychology and religion.
Your Inner juices determine your state of mind and your level
of consciousness. Keep the flow normal. If your fluids are out
of balance, ingest the proper medicament, to solvage your
predicament.
Psychology is alchemy plus astrology. Modern terms: psycho-
pharmacology plus bio-rhythmic sequential analysis.
Psychology and religion degenerated into a primitive ab-
straction game when the Hippocratic key was lost. Some dope
turned off the hope.
Notes from the Underground: Find self whistling or humming
tune. Unconscious muse-ack background. Replay tape. What's
the name of that tune? Today it's Kiss me once and kiss me
twice and kiss me once again its been a long, long time.
Especially after the last judgment there will be an accidental increase of
punishment; for then the demons will never again be permitted to leave
the confines of hell, but will finally be imprisoned for all eternity; and the
retrobate souls of men will be tormented by union with their hideous bodies.
98
Here is home of Mesomorph. On iron pile, around the yard
musculature. Body building. Rippling corded malestrength.
Ksatriya shock troop warriors. Barred and chained from
"woman.
Con folk lore. "Women are really hungry for a guy when
they know he just come out of prison . . . Run after him heatly.
Harlen say everytime he hit the street he has to beat them
away."
Every body smile drift off fond fantasy.
And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now
when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught,
we could no longer forebear, and in spite of myself my own tears were
flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept over myself; for certainly
I was not weeping over him, but at the thought of my own calamity in
having lost such a companion.
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: MENTIONING OTHER INMATES BY
NAME OR NUMBER, OR RELATING INSTITUTIONAL GOSSIP
Brother called to third floor window looking down lawn be
low. "See the gopher. I've been watching him dig that hole
for a week." Just inside wire fence near road where prison
busses imcourt-excourt green grass covered with brown earth.
Thin white-grey rodent pushing dirt with tiny hands. Glimpse
around duck back in.
"Think he's trying to escape?"
"He's making a warm nest for his lady and the kids. Poor
guy. He doesn't know he's inside the prison walls."
"He ain't in prison. He don't know what prison is."
"Wait until the guard in the gun tower sees him."
"They'd enjoy shooting him. Or they'll gas him."
"Had some on my lawn once. Put chemical down the hole
to get them but instead it killed a whole row of flowers."
Watching little gopher father innocently, dearly preparing
home for his children. Inside the prison walls. Extra-terrestrial
observer watching us.
Rosemary sent picture. Sitting in corn 'looking wisely into
camera. Carefully mount it on cardboard and attach to wall
of cell. When I look in to her eyes, eye see my soul. Ancient
racial old friend recognition. Oh the life times.
Susan poised between new life and old death. Om. Shanti.
Bill Capricorn returns from visit to Palm Hall. Dormitory for
violent brothers. Whew! Talk about custody. Locks within
99
locks within locks. In cells most of the time. Let out in special
yard in pairs. Most of them can't be let out with anyone else.
Some will attack anyone they get loose with. They aren't
psycho. Just wound up to kill. Anyone they can reach. Some
at Vacaville so violent. Orders require four guards to be with
him when outside cell. Two on side. Two behind him. Huskiest
guards.
Hell is a state of the greatest and most complete misfortune, as is evident
from all that has been said. The damned have no joy whatever and it were
better for them that they had not been born . . . (Matt. XXVI, 24)
Remembering first day in Chino prison. Walked eagerly to
yard.
After lunar month in single-cell isolation county jail every
pale face cell hungered yearning turned to sunlight botanical
tropism. Small grassy area outfield of softball. Ripped off heavy
shoes green grass earth on bare feet. Took off shirt facing sun.
Long drinking starved meditation solar.
Check the action. Six hundred men in small square sur-
rounded by walls barb-wired roof high fences bobbed wired
coiled, gun-tower catwalk. Out to south green meadows dairy
cattle grazing. Youth Authority camp kids care for cows.
Score of Blacks clustered around foot-high wooden platform
lifting weights. Few tattooed, burly whites. Four handball courts
against western wall. Chicanes slicing graceful driving black
needle ball, shouting in Spanish. Blacks and whites playing
Softball. Ten on a side volleyball. Five on a side one-basket
ball. Hundred men sit disconsolately on outfield grass. Hundred
men sitting benches by park tables.
I was the only one barefoot. Why do these men imprison their
feets? Hey man, barefoots gainst da rules. Ask guard. O.K. do
yoga barefoot? Surprised careless shrug. Sure. There's no rule
against barefoot. Just bare-ass. Just keep your pants on.
First few days doing yoga, shy curious collect around. Stand-
ing on my head answering questions. What's your time, man?
Didn't they get you smuggling in Texas? Let me run my case
down for you. Upside down reality. Man you made of rubber.
By third day Wolf Man join me. Sturdy black-haired nineteen
years, acid-saddhu, moved barefoot, shirtless across yard
wild-animal shy, always shining smile. Celestial gossip. Each
day walks up with question about lycergic angel visions.
There was this bird-like creature, radiant like sun carrying
golden cup with diagram like this. Was that the Holy Ghost?
He live in federal parks with sleeping bag and dog. Once
two policemen came to him on beach and when dog bark
100
thjts drew guns on dog. Carrying Catholic Encyclopedia read-
ing sections on revelation-visions. This one on the beach at
Mazatlan, four black angels, two on either side of the throne
of God holding silver fire. Incubi and succubi, is that how you
pronounce them? We pray together. Hail Mary. Our Father.
Om Mani Padma Hum.
Wolf Man and I two wild animals in barefoot shirtless.
Gentle holy days but sleepless nights. Yoga working too
well.
Yoga is the generation, control, and distribution of erotic
energy.
To understand the fundamental principles of erotics, it Is
well to start with the experiments performed by the early
Vedic Hindus. If two bodies are brought Into intimate contact,
e.g. by pressure or rubbing together and then separated, they
have certain new properties, the most marked of which is
the power of attracting. Bodies possessing this power are said
to be "eroticized."
It is easily observed that, if certain bodies are charged, the
erotic effects are manifested only at the points where the con-
tact was made with the other body; while with other bodies
the erotic effects are manifested over the whole body regard-
less of where the contact was made. Bodies of the latter kind
are called "conductors," the former "non-conductors."
Yoga is a method for converting mechanical energy into
erotic energy by means of continuous flowing movements pro-
ducing current of tension. Consider two magnetic poles of
opposite polarity producing fields of force body warm, muscles
hard supple alternating currents in-breath exhale. Humming
power makes the sound of OM. Purr of galactic machinery.
OM.
If an isolated conductor is charged, there will be a definite
distribution of charge over the surface but if another con-
ductor is brought near it, the distribution will be altered by
the new force. Lying in bed alone kundalin serpent power
un-coiled nuclear if now this second conductor is suddenly
removed the charge will oscillate surrounding disturbances of
magnetic field insomniac can't sleep.
Tantra is communionism plus electricity.
Gentlemen, how shall we harness this awesome energy for
the benefit of mankind and a tranquil night's sleep. Handball?
Freddie friendly speak freak begs me play handball. One
past incarnation played three time week on faculty courts
at Berkeley. Freddie and eye play one game against wiry
101
Chicanos. After few bumbling moments they stop and look to
sidelines expectantly. Que pasa? Game over. They took you
eight to nothing. Clumpsy shame.
There are four courts graded according to ability, north to
south. Our hippy band move to corner wall, not really a king's
court, begin child's play circle. Make up ground rules. Ball hit
side benches or sitting spectators; out! Ball angle under
bench, hit poles: good!
Slowly grace skill dervish rhythm turns. Dance begins to
formalize. Tall rangy Greyhound puppy Jon becomes partner.
We reach that adeption where hand-wall-ball become one two
three winged rubber band web of movement. Concentrate on
yoga of foot placement. Move foot left right body automatically
orbiting whips arm around Interstellar star colliding hurtling
black rubber plan it, whack!
Concentrate on breathing as ball bounce up cement inhale
up, up swelling swinging arm, there, exact moment of ex-
plosion, exhale ball back to wall.
Handball. Zen ball. Now and then ball kundalin man ball.
Whirl and shuttle Sufi trance, high intoxication, drumming
rhythm. Partner left, slide right. Weaving lines embroider op-
ponent's loom.
The game shifts from muscular competition to magic.
See it first with Wolf Man. Follows me over furry learns how
to imitate me wrap blue handkerchief over gentle paws lum-
bers novice around court. Natural grace adapts quickly but
hitting, driving rhythm alien to amator nature.
Deflecting Jon's protestant drive. "Common man we'll mur-
der them." Oh no, brother. It's a dance not a sport. "Common
man, we'll skunk these dump-trucks eight to nothing." Oh no
brother. We seek perfect balance. Perfect means perfectly
matched. We seek the game that goes on forever. Chunga
means game point. What does chunga mean in Spanish?
Female monkey. We seek chunga chunga, eleven-eleven go
back to eight endless rallies. It's the play off not the pay off.
Wolf Man magic. Awkard lunge him ball hit inch above
ground. Good! Tide turns. I makes three mistakes in row. Wolf
Man wins. Wolf Man? Look at him. God didn't want us to win
that one. Animal smile understand. Smiles and nods dumbly.
Next game eye say, O.K. Wolf Man this time magic swings
away and partner Jon's long drives click a line.
Gradually without explicit plan we drift south to official
courts. Challenge minor leagers. Jon loping easily backcourt.
I forecourt feline. Game of space time. Floating Tao position.
We win effortlessly. So smooth routine Jon slopes off frivolous,
102
mischievious. Borrows crutches and lets me play all game.
Patty cakes. Hits ball over roof carelessly or into high guard
wire so we lift him on shoulders he scrambles up wall gun-
tower guard bending over worried and pries ball loose.
You're getting bored with win so easy. Time to move to
south court play Chicanes. Jon highbrows raise.
Walk on center court winballton. Self-consciously ask for
tally. New stags enter breeding circle machism. Tribal testing
ritual. Chicanes shrug. Glance at size of our antlers.
Time to play. Warm up stiffly. Challengers serve. Glance
back at burly macho. Bola! Look to Rosemary sitting in front
row sombra. I dedicate this corrida to you beautiful woman. I
serve high lazy arching hit back right corner so Jesus angle
to me. Move to watch, his feet tell he two wise drive high down
right to Jon, who long-legged jump drive high right Jesus
surprised fades back I shift left waiting. Jesus ball hard but
too middle I slice to low right corner Pancho quick dart misses.
Shouts "Hijo" EEEEHO, means son of a. Look to Rosemary and
smile eyes.
Una.
Serve again to same spot. Jesus feet warn me run left out of
court waiting perfect slice low right, but nervous too cautious
Pancho sensed play brilliant save caught me surprise but skit-
ter left out of his reach. EEEEHO! Rosemary smiles back with
eyes.
Dos.
Bouncing ball before serve like Madrid Fronton glance back,
Jesus nods. Serve same place. Jesus ready this time carbine
drive sharp-shoot at my feet caught in middle only chance
lean down holding palm at angle black rubber richochets off
and clips wall corner. Murmur of interest from sidelines.
EEEEHO!
TRES.
Serve. Jesus tiger drive bullet higher handless let go, Big
Jon gallops back overhead slinging return caroom off wall so
fast catch Pancho In chest. EEEEHO! Sideline ripple. Jesus
and Pancho shouting at each other in Spanish. Self-conscious
now nod to grinning Jon.
Cuatro.
Magic flowing so strong now Jesus golfs next two serves out
of bounds and Jon runs game out quickly lose no point.
Jon and I wait calmly for next challenger I am composing
telegram to Justice William O. Douglas. Oh man, get me out.
This is proof positive I've been here too long.
103
That night dreamt playing Jai Alai with long basket cesta In
' Fronton Mexico laughing.
Not long ago Mivart advocated the opinion that the pains of the damned
would decrease with time and in the end their lot would not be extremely
sad; that they would finally reach a certain kind of happiness and would
prefer existence to annihilation; and although they would still continue
to suffer a punishment symbolically described as a fire by Holy Writ,
they would hate no longer, and the most unfortunate among
them be happier than many a pauper in this life. It is quite obvious that
all this is opposed to scripture and the teaching of the Church. The articles
cited were condemned by the Congregation of the Index and the Holy
Office on May 14 and July 19, 1893 (cf. Hcivilta Cattolica I, 1893, 672).
104
May 5 70 Chino
Yellow steamy smog sun sauna handball. Crowd watch fast-
clash.
ATTENTION ON THE YARD: LEARY 671; REPORT TO THE
SERGEANTS OFFICE IMMEDIATELY.
Standing sidelines breathing strip sweat handwraps. It's my
lawyer or a bail-bond freedom-gram.
Traffic officer point Chaplain office. Two gentlemen to see
you.
Two trim good guys. Federal vibes. FBI or Narcs?
Breeze in flushed, radiating health. My name's Pancho Gon-
zales. Can I get you a gin and tonic? Smile. Flash cards. FBI.
Gentlemen will you excuse me a moment while I get a
smoke. Go to my office next door. Note pad pencil.
Now what were your names? Write them down. Danish?
No. German. I giggle.
Roll dice for first move. Do you happen know a man named?
Show dear brother mug shot chicken-plucked. Wheresee?
Whensee? Whysee? Howsee? Wheresee? Whathe? Didhe?
Couldhe? WouJdhe?
Truth or consequences. Move fact pieces carefully. Games
of skill and intriguing pastimes have captured the imagination
of the human race since the world began. Origin lost In antiq-
uity. It has been played for hundreds of years in almost every
country in the world. The Romans referred to it as "scrlpta
magista;" the French knew it as "Trie Trac." Russians world
champions. Greeks good.
Why are you interested in him?
He failed to show up in court. Fugitive fly jail bird. When
was that? Shuffle file.
Hmm. That's over two years ago. *
The most important strategy is to bring your furthermost men
out of your opponent's home table. There are the weakest
members of your forces and you should bring them to safety
without delay.
Did he have any contacts in foreign country?
Avoid unnecessary risks. The beginner usually attempts an
over bold game, taking all kinds of risk to make points.
105
That's the last time you saw him?
Never expose a man to being hit unless the risk means a
greater risk for your opponent if he takes advantage of It.
What was the name of that lawyer you recommended for
him?
Chess Is mechanical warfare. European. Backgammon is
lamic sufi flow. Dice adds cosmic chance. You gambol through
opponent while he flow through you. Go is God game. Two
Zen master play perfect game. Ends in tie. Perfect symmetrical
Yin-yang mandala records the final play. Black White.
When should you adopt a Back Game?
Could you give us the names of his friends?
When you have overtaken your opponent start your men on
the race home.
Now, could I ask yoi; a few questions about a man that we
are very interested in? We've had a laws of convicting reports
on one J. Edgar Hoover.
They tense.
Is it true that FBI agents are forbidden to have extra or
pre-marital sexual relations?
Smile. Why do you ask?
Well J. Edgar is seventy-five-years-old bachelor. According
to regulations that makes him a seventy-flve-year-old virgin?
Exchange glances. Well we don't have any information on
that.
When is the last time you saw J. Edgar Hoover?
Try and play with better players, as this is one of the best
means of improving your game.
Playing lot of handball, Doctor? You sure look healthy. Swap
jobs with you.
Tell truth I am rebreathed that this long voice from past is
all you want (or is it?).
Laugh. Yes, I can imagine you are.
Friendly laughing handshake. They assigned from L. A.
office. Subject's file probably in other city. They know little
about case. FBI very diligent about small details. Get reports
filed all over country. Follow up leads.
The scoring is usually done on the basis of a Single Game.
106
May 7 70 Chino
Essence distillate of prison wisdom: Do your own time.
Ask Don wise guru. What does that mean: Do your own time?
Smiles. It means. Get off my case. Get your nose out of my
business. Get off my back.
Like, do your own thing?
Exactly. I'm doing my time. I'll let you do your time. Live
and let live.
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: WRITE IN ENGLISH, OTHERWISE MAIL
WILL BE DELAYED IN CENSORING
Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain
his tears, had got up and moved away, and I followed; and at that moment
Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out into a loud
cry which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness:
"What is this strange outcry?" he said. "I sent away the women mainly
in order that they might not offend in this way, for I have heard that a
man should die in peace. Be quiet, then, and have patience."
LONG LONG AFTER John Chapman of Massachusetts bought an apple
orchard WHEN SETTLERS PUT UP BEAM AND RAFTER wandered westward
with his pack and gun THEY ASKED OF THE BIRDS carrying appleseeds
from the cider presses WHO GAVE THIS FRUIT? which he planted in
Indiana and Ohio WHO WATCHED THIS FENCE TIL THE SEEDS TOOK
ROOT? and the wilderness bore flowers and fruit wherever he passed
WHO GAVE THESE BOUGHS? As the first nursery-man in the Ohio valley
THEY ASKED THE SKY he became a sort of forest God AND THERE WAS
NO REPLY who sowed as he went BUT THE ROBINS MIGHT HAVE SAID
and vanished at last TO THE FARTHEST" WEST HE HAS FOLLOWED THE
SUN into the far new west HIS LIFE AND HIS EMPIRE JUST BEGUN.
South handball court bull ring of prison. "Rival of the fittest.
Size fighters from sement jungles Quentin, Soledad, Folsom,
Tracey strong termers. Smile-driving ball in-chainers.
Our north-court amator Tao dance was designed to keep
game going. Long rhythmic rallies. I could play several games
never mistaking. Return. Return. Return.
But bull ring silent, quick, lethal jugular. Low bullets slanting
cross fire inch from ground. Ballistic rocket drives from steel
107
cabled arms tattooed with Swastikas. No emotion. Ice cool
proud professional jungle fighters. Wolf pack rip off lame soft.
But second day different. Walk up wrapping blue cloth
round hand. Old Manuel look up. "Take tally weeth you
Leary?" I nod. He lope bent back court. Strange partnership.
Mixed doubles. During Olympic games old wars truced. Weave
Zen alliance. Low riders. Gunsells. Nazis. Lonesters. Gang-
sters. On each shoulder blade Manuel has two foot tattoo of
naked woman pubic furry and on rippling bleep grim graffiti:
DONT TRUST WOMEN.
Little said but they dig my being with them. Everybody
yearns for the old days of philosopher kings.
108
May 8 70 Chino
Once on doing time in Orange County Jail a short merry
boy appeal that eye write a Psychedelic Prayer for him.
Forgot.
Here at Chino herd tells of fierce low rider Allegro beat up
weeklies punking gentles coming up from Orange.
Today on yard Willie Madden drive up to me with new pen
pal. Sweet young boy Where's that Psychedelic Prayer you
promised me? What's you name? Allegro.
Ask Willie play handball. He smile away. You might beat me
and that ruin my reputation as gunsell. Hey man, why you put
your arm around that nigger? He leader of our enemy.
Oh man, you got your hate list, right. I get in trouble with
you if I go around loving people on your hate list. You gimme
your hate list so I know who I'm supposed to hate. And I give
you a love list.
Willie laugh he lighted. Your too much.
Rarely men-shunned except by trustees con-fided: Pin
Cushion Jones. Dread enigma.
Who is Pin Cushion Jones?
Wise Ho Toy round flesh mountain of smilewise leans back
shaking head.
Twenty-three years old. First came carrying murder. Straight
life. Ingenius in many ways. When you come in here to Palm
Hall they give you a sin search. Not like the one you got,
superficial. I mean really skinpection. Put him in special isola-
tion. No other possibly come near. Second night he calls guard
over; hands him two section bars sawed off cell and hack saw.
Says, you seems like eager beaver I'll let you be the hero. How
did he get saw in cell? And how see saw two bars? You know
try cut steel with hack saw with handle. Hard work. And he
with naked blade. Wet towels to muffle sound.
Custody went crazy trying to figure that one out.
Next week he is in office talking with lawyer in front of guard.
Reaches in his sleeve and pulls out a T\NO FOOT LONG knife.
Hands it to lawyer.
Why?
109
To keep his mind occupied.
Next week in cell just above his a white racist killed a Black
Panther with exactly the same kind of knife. How? Where?
They call him Pin Cushion?
He has fifty-seven knife wounds in his body. When they move
him they fly him private airplane guard. Can't let him on regu-
lar bus. The other cons would kill him.
Three months ago he was in six-man cell in County jail. Bet
one cell mate he could tie his hands with handkerchief to last
five minutes. Bet three packages of cigarettes. Cell mate
greedy for cigarette. No way handkerchief could hold him five
minutes. Place six packages of cigarettes on table and Jones
tie with handkerchief. Then hit him over head with chair.
Stabbed him to death. Then pull his pants down and fuck
him. Right in front of four other cell mates.
Why didn't they do something?
Scared. Pin Cushion Jones? He's killed lot a folk. He's
clever though.
When we heard that we were ashamed, and restrained our tears; and he
walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on
his back, according to the direction, and the man who gave him the poison
now and then looked at his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed
his foot hard and asked him if he could feel; and he said "No"; and then
his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold
and still.
"In their wild state, rats are natural killers ... In recent experiments at
Princeton University, scientists investigating the mechanisms involved in
the rat's murderous behavior made a remarkable discovery; by injecting
drugs into the rat's brain, they can turn its killer instinct on or off, almost
at will.
"Thus, even though they had never killed before, or even seen a killing,
they (pacifist rats) behaved exactly like wild rats for the duration of the
drug's effectiveness.
"If such violence could be unleashed chemically, the researchers rea-
soned it might also be chemically contained. Repeating the experiment
with known killer rats, they used another agent, methylatropine, which has
a different effect on the neurons; it blocks the message pathway. As ex-
pected, the killers became almost instant pacifists . . .
"The Princeton experimenters emphasize that they are still largely ig-
norant about the basic biochemical mechanisms behind the rats' behavior.
". . . If the killer instinct can be chemically controlled in a creature as
complex as the rodent, some day such aggressiveness may well be tamed
in man. Indeed, among those who are apparently interested in that pos-
sibility is one of the sponsors of the Princeton research: the U.S. Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency." Time, March 30, 1970.
Our Harvard research discovered over ten years ago the
existence of a chemical which, If eaten before meals three
110
times a day, will not only enhance the appetite but cuts down
over seventy-five percent of man's aggressiveness. A tiny lump
of hashish.
Proof reading admission sheet. Ghastly role call crime and
time. The names are beautiful finny labels swimming up from
gene pools of past. Lots of Jesuses, Alejandros, Antonios.
And lots of Timothys. Timo fearer, Theo God. God fearers.
But the numbers are cruel. 261 PC, P 65432, 3-10.
We are admission-listers of hell. Bob smiles. You have to
turn off meaning of job. I'm here to do legal work. The ad-
mission list is my ticket for freedom. I love the liberating work
here. I get up each morning and run to the office like a gambler
running to the track. Every day there's hope of a long shot.
Marconi's appeal from the Supreme Court. Waiting for Jones'
reversal. What writ hath got wrought today.
Look at this commitment.
WHITE, Perry Randolph
Crime: Rape w/force & Sex Perv & Crime vs. Nature & L & L Con-
duct & Kidnap & Asit w/l/T/C Rape All CC
Sentence: 3-Life & 6mo-15 & 1-Llfe & 1-25 & 1-20 All CC
What a busy guy.
He owes two lives and sixty years.
Yeah. I remember that case. All different victims. And they
dropped a dozen more. Some of these guys are animals.
Think about this & return to say. I don't think animals is
the right term. Animals can't commit a crime against nature.
There's no perversion in nature. Except for the caged im-
prisoned apes of Sir Solly Zuckerman in the London Zoo. Wild
animals are pure kings of nature. The descriptive adjective for
unnatural is not animal, it's human.
Yeah. It's a narrow and wrong point of view. Like turtles talk-
ing about people-necked sweaters.
Night calls to Friday movie. Five hundred caged men in gym
sit on folding chairs. Musak play Lawrence Welk. Lights dim.
Movie dim scratchy. Before lights dim hear name called. Jon
callmg me. Pointing. Go over. See old friend just returned from
court. Bad news see him means he loses p^obation re-turn for
prison. Hello Perry. King, young gentleman handball partner
erudite brother.
Sorry to see you back brother. He nods and friendly.
Later remember. Perry. He said he was violated on an old
rape. Gentle dignified Perry.
Next day tell Bob. Perry is one of the finest men in the
jomt. Oh the dark, ancient mystery of sex. All politics is faggot
hassle. Without her we are lost erratic electrons.
111
May 9 70 Chino
There dwells a man named Seymour in cell 672 who looks
like Jewish stockbroker with dark glasses. At all times of day
and night he makes "Quack Quack" like Donald Duck. Busy,
smiling, wiry, Quack Quack. A practical broker. Short sheeter
he put pudding in your picket. Quack Quack.
Yesterday sitting in busy Release and Receiving office. Has
box in lap. Calls guard over. Hey see what I have in box. Lift top
up little guard bend down peer in shadowy dim. Hath cut hole
in box and put his penis in.
Cock box. Quack. Quack.
And then Socrates felt them himself, and said: "When the poison reaches
the heart, that will be the end." He was beginning to grow cold around
the groin, when he uncovered his face (for he had covered himself up) and
said (they were his last words): "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you
remember to pay the debt?" "The debt shall be paid," said Crito. "Is there
anything else?"
YOUR LETTER IS RETURNED FOR THE REASON(s)
CHECKED BELOW: NOTIFY THIS PARTY TO PLACE THEIR
NAME, RETURN ADDRESS. AND REASONS FOR REMAIN-
ING AT LIBERTY ON FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE
112
May 11 70 Chino
Monday morning bright snappy office cheer. New week. Got
through another weak-end. Friday night a worst.
Visit nestdoor neighbor coffee pot. Watch him tear off three
read numbers. Saturday. Sunday. Monday. Right on. Off the
week, brother.
Gentleman Jim breezy in. Matudinal blessing and springtime
salutations, comrades. May the sun shine in.
Don nod slowly. Somethings good happen this week.
Mid morning we make arrangements for writing. Under-
ground agents plan a code. Outside mail drops. Reunion plans.
After liberation.
Sensor tension building. Barometric pressure building. Some-
thing soon to happen.
Justice Douglas orders bail? Fifth Circuit cuts you loose?
UFO arrives?
Late afternoon R & R clerk lean in door. Well you're going
Tim. Waves memeograph sheet. You're shipping out to CMC
West. Hit it lucky.
CMC West. Old man home. Limber dick gulch. Country club.
Leave for unit. Look up former western.
Face light up. You lucky. CMC West best joint In state.
Country club. No lock up. Just at bunk three counts a day.
Swimming pool. Golf course. Bowling alley. Nice people. All
old cons live quietly. No young gunsells burning sheets. Picnic
visits on yard. Visitors buy lunch at commissary for you. Lots
of cons love it so much, hate to leave. When paroled get
violated so can come back. Private radios. No smog. Near
ocean. Near Hearst's castle. You can plant your own garden.
Some oldsters get tetchy. So institutionalized schedule. Shave
now. Walk here. Eat there. Crotchedly is g6t in way. No prob-
lem.
I smile thinking contact visits with Rosemary. Contact. Con-
spire breath. Contact. Change. Adventure. New scene.
Old cons shake hand. You'll like it. No young kids there.
Young cons shakes hand. You have good time there. There
are some kids there play handball get high with. You be young
gunsell there. Tell them, move you wheelchair old man or I
punk you good.
113
Collect personal gear to ship out. Two ball point pens.
Shower shoes. Two packages rolling tobacco. Travel light,
travel far.
Name
Box No.
Date 19
Tim
I'm writing just a few lines to you because it Is easier to put on
paper than to tell you. If you know what I mean.
Meeting you has changed my life and in so many ways. You've
opened my eyes and I am very grateful for that. In my heart we've
grown to be greatest of friends. I will miss you very much. You've
made my stay here very happy. You were always around when I
was down, you kept me happy when I didn't think I was going
to be happy. Tim I'll never forget you. I'll always hold a place
in my heart and prayers for you. I pray to god everynite so things
will work out fine and I know god will take care of you.
Tim I love you like a brother and in my heart you'll always be
just that. I can only wait for the day that we meet again but
under different curcumstances. Every body is behind you and I
know you'll come out on top. So best of luck and may god bless
you always
Love your friend
Jon
May 11, 1970 (Monday)
Tim,
This evening, just before dinner, i learned you will be trans-
ferred to C.M.C. West this coming Wednesday. I feel very down.
What can I say to comfort you, and to really show you how "we"
feel? I can only imagine how you feel now; and I'm sure my
imagination can capture only a small measure of all that you
actually feel. If i could do your time, or go thru the hassels for
you, and "they" would let you be, and release you, I would gladly
take your time. But, of course, I can only wish I could take your
time; yet I do. You have given so much to so many you belong
where you are needed, as well as loved most; outside, with your
family and all your "brothers and sisters." Please don't ever give
up keep the faith yow know you'll never be alone as "we" are
always with you, and "we" are not just Freddy, Dommino, and
Gary "we" are all the hundreds of thousands everywhere who
look to your light & will be "with you" all ways, and will never
allow anyone or anything to restrict your natural movements for
long. "We" love you you know "we" need you and want you
free, in every respect and as you are! All my friends & my brother's
friends want you outside I mention this because they represent
an already huge and growing "spirit of love" that will see to it
that your unnecessary imprisonment is ended, so you can be, with
everyone, and completely your self. Always remember, it won't
be long, something will happen to help, and "we" are with you.
Personally, I will be rapping with my brother at our first visit and
suggest he & his friends start getting "heads together" on my
brother's campus, as well as other places & get the "Free Tim
Leary" movement on the media and speaking clearly for all to
hear and showing themselves for all to see. Dommino said there
is a concert planned, or in the works, to raise bread for "legal
action" obviously many of your good brothers & sisters will be
applying pressure until someone or something has to give in, with
you, and you will come out!
I'll miss your physical presence but will otherwise be "with
you" wherever you may be stay well & take good care of your
self.
KEEP SMILING ! ! !
With Love,
your brother
Perry
P.S.
Where did I read: "All things pass"?
Tim,
"We" will help this to pass believe me!
115
May 12 70 Chino
Sad sharing moment on yard. Good byes. Sitting in sun
against wall half-naked Benares saddhus. Heavenly compan-
ions orbiting bye. Jolly Pisces. Heavy Leos. (Leos should never
be in prison.)
Uncouth squatting against sun. His deep rhinoceros eyes
smile welcome.
What job did you have on the outside?
Oh, I din have no job. Just putted around.
Putted?
On a motor scooter.
Did you use dope?
Nods sheepishly.
Heroin?
Surprised hurt. Naw.
Grass.
Oh mainly reds and wine.
Reds and wine. Reds and wine. There it was the Hippo-
cratic Key to the mystery of Uncouth.
Psychopharmacological diagnosis.
When we left galactic center they told us: when you reach a
biologically inhabited planet ask two religious questions.
Which biochemicals do you use? What is your attitude toward
the male-female relationship? What dope is your sacrament?
Do you worship an It, a He, a She, or a Fused Helical Unity?
Hippocrates said that there are eight humors, liquids, po-
tions. Euphorics, Erotics, Phlegmatics, Narcotics, Melancholies,
Emergenlcs, Gholerics, Energies.
These natural juices produce psychomotor states known to
the Asclepiadae as: Euphoria, Aphrodisia, Tranquilia, Nar-
cotica, Melancholia, Panic, Choleria, Energia.
A natural healthy flow of humor allows the appropriate juice
to mobilize the psychomotor machinery In response to any
stimulus. Dis-ease (or sin, if you prefer) is caused by inhibition,
imbalance, or over-production of any natural juice. In this
case the state of healthy balance is recovered by administra-
tion of a medicament-sacrament. Hippocrates lists the eight
116
generic sacraments: Cocaine. Cannabis. Hashish. Opium. B\\^
Neurotin. Cholerin. Amphetamine.
A footnote in the Hippocratic Collection suggests that if the
reader understands the preceding three paragraphs then the
reader has penetrated the highest secret of nature and ranks
among the wisest to have ever lived.
Reds and wine. Melancholia, Panic, Choleria.
The familiar comforting rituals of daily life. Coffee from hot
tap water at sunrise. Hot shower before evening count. The
newspaper smuggled up to be read between outcount and
nightcount.
HIPPOCRATES OF COS, MWG, 68", 150 lbs (est), black hair,
brown eyes, DOB 460 B.C.
Informants Soranus & Plato report subject member of
sect, cult, family, guild, society called Asclepios (i.e. Sons
of Aslceplos). Although little is known of the rites, duties,
and functions of these Asclepiadae they are known to
cultivate narcotic, euphoric, and aphrodisiac plants and
to experiment both on their own bodies and on others,
using illegal potions. According to the Encyclopedia Brl-
tannica, many "highly conjectural statements about them
have become common."
Hippocrates is known to have been in close touch with
Leary, who considers Hippocrates to be his teacher and
guide. H. is rumored to have passed on the essence of
his teaching to Leary.
It is said and it is likely that H. travelled widely. He is
said to have died at Larissa, at an age given variously,
the extremes being 85 to 110.
Hippocrates is probably the most dangerous and socially
disruptive man ever to have lived. His principles and his
techniques with potions, if become widespread, would
totally free each individual from state control and make
possible complete liberty of consciousness.
As his disciple and direct heir, Leary can be described as
the most dangerous man alive.
Subject left his notes In what is callect by Interpol, The
Hippocratic Collection. Among fragments are the following
equations: Sun-gold; Moon-silver; Venus-copper; Mercury-
mercury; Mars-Iron; Saturn-lead.
117
BODYGUARD
ff I had broken three
jailhouse commandments
. . .what happens now ? ?>*>
M'
lY CELLMATE NOLAN WRAPPING UP FIFTEEN YEARS
. I ON THIS STRETCH . . . LUCKY BREAK FOR ME TO
HAVE A BODHISATTVA ALONG ... OH HE WAS A LONG-
TIMER ALL RIGHT . . . SPENT A HUNDRED YEARS OR
MORE IN ALMOST ANY JAILPENITENTIARYREFORMATORY-
JOINT YOU CAN NAME . . . TALK ABOUT SOLITARY CON-
FINEMENT . . . TALK ABOUT CHAINS AND SHACKLES . . .
TALK ABOUT CRIMEPUNISHMENTFREEDOMCONTROLPOLI-
TICSREPRESSIONINFERNOPURGATORYSINREDEMPTION . . .
AND HE'D LISTEN WITH A SMILE . . .
LOOK NOLAN . . . GOODNEWS . . . JUST GOT A
LETTER FROM PLAYBOY MAGAZINE . . . THEY WANT TO
PUBLISH A STORY ABOUT MY FIRST WEEK IN JAIL . . .
I HAVE IT HERE . . . WILL YOU READ IT.
WRINKLEYES SMILE AT MY YOUTHFUL PLEASURE . . .
FIRST WEEK IN JAIL . . . HMMM.
LIES DOWN ON CELLBUNK . . . BEGINS TO READ MANU-
SCRIPT . . .
First jailmeal . . . tintray loaded lumpystarch . . . tincup
chlorinate . . . sitting next a burly lad . . . surlyhulk . . . thick
lowbrow blackhair sweptback lowrider style . . . bigarms tattoo
carpet ...
Eye stare pointblank amaze at automobile sklnshow ...
skyblue nudegirl . . . disney devil pitchfork orangered . . .
girlhead etched brunette ... her hauntingeyes met bleep crease
where bullseye vein for accuracy ... the number 8 . . . coat
of arms . . . skull rampant over crossed spoon and needle over
motto . . . Junk is Fun.
Illustrated man medevilgrin . . . flexarms undulate . . .
You have everything there except Born To Lose.
That's here on my shoulder . . . pullup shortsleeve shirt . . .
What does number 8 represent?
Oh that . . . Heroin . . . eighth letter in alphabet ... you
dig heroin?
Thirteen . . , you like heroin?
I love heroin . . . its me . . .
Want to here more but bull flick finger rismg us to garbage
cans.
After lunch P.A. blare . . . ATTENTION . . . LEARY B-3
ROLL UP YOUR GEAR ... HIT THE BEACH ...
Orange County Jail call runway front of cells "The Beach"
... Los Angeles County Jail call It "Freeway."
Rolling plastic-covered mattress around blanket sheets
guys clusteround . . . groovy brother you're balled out . . .
119
Happy float to tierend . . . barred gate click pass out module
. . . invisible loudspeaker . . . YOU LEARY . . . PROCEED TO
D TANK . . .
Invisible eye watch fixed robot . . .
WALK 10 FEET AND TURN RIGHT . . . THAT'S D TANK . . .
Metal gate . . . lock click ... in tier of single cells . . .
PUT YOUR GEAR IN D-3
Third cell empty . . . metal bed . . . metal table . . . metal
toilet . . . metal washbowl . . . throw mattress on bed . . . invis-
ible eye speak . . .
YOU HAVE YOUR CHOICE OF CELL LOCKUP OR DAY
ROOM
Out to beach . . . cell rumbleshut . . . walk to dayroom . . .
tenmen sit round metal table watching T.V. . . . looklaugh . . .
Well Brother Timothy, what you doing here?
I don't know . . . they just rolled me up from the next
tank ...
You know what this is . . . secret clubsmile . . . we're all
murderers . . . you've made the elite . . . this is highpower . . .
welcome to deathrow . . .
Start prisoner meeting ritual . . . whocase . . . whycase . . .
whatcase . . . whencase . . . wherecase . . . Loudspeaker:
LEARY . . . ROLL UP YOUR GEAR . . .
Unseen lightdial switch hand open cell . . . click tierlock . . .
metal voice direct downhall to singlecell tier . . .
Here dayroom lessdlgnity . . . youth effusion . . .
This is N tank . . . protective custody for badactors . . . non-
cooperators . . . snitches . . . political prisoners . . . messianic
acidheads . . . single cell lockup ... we used to have child-
molesters . . . babyrapers . . . motherfuckers . . . otra assorted
sexbeefs moved next door ...
Here was Tom Lynn . . . twenty, blond, funny, charming, weak
. . . Aries . . . sit together meals entertaintaies Vietnam mari-
juana . . . Tokyo opium . . . acid love ceremonies in Army
hospital mixed ward . . . hashish concubines in Bangkok . . .
methedrine manias . . . shooting heroin in lady's room of filling
station where he worked . . .
At night stand outside my cell . . . leanon broom . . . pretend
sweeping . . . babble hiptales . . . bull bellow him . . . celldoor
clang . . . silence fall on tier . . . then eerie murder voice come
singing through ventilators from neighboring tier . . .
Fuck you bastard Lynn ... get ready to die . . . your days
are numbered . . .
Tom Lynn never mention night doomvoice and I forget . . .
When once ask cheerful fact twist into long explanation.
120
He carries heavy lead shroud jacket of snitch . . . protective
custody . . . watch out for knife in back ...
Once upon a crime was badguy Willie Madden harmrobber
lowrider smash down candy-store counter owners scream . . .
help . . . robber . . . gun smash crashregister . . . standback
or I blow your fucking brains out . . . Tom and Willie shoot
heroin together ... oh so Willy bullyboy caged here . . .
vicious hater . . . now takes three life-tops to prison . . . mean
. . . mean . . . mean . . . beat wife . . . beat oldlady storeowner
. . . beat me . . . gets kicks from startle face of victims . . . ass-
hole raping weak prisoners . . . rape longhairs . . . bleeding
anus . . . blood . . . blood . . . has to blame someone for
troubles. . . blame sweet Tom . . . meanman Willie recruit gang
of murder friends to kill me . . . during trial policeman testify
I helpful DA many telltales ... not true ... not true . . .
I listen lotus pose on jailbunk . . . Tom sit on toilet . . .
standard jailhouse etiquette . . .
Bad vibrations . . . coldark prisoncrime mist seep in air . . .
whew . . . turn that TV off ... I never like crimedramahorror-
suspense movies . . . never . . .
Can't you explain to Willie that you didn't snitch . . . testify
that cop was lying ... get him new trial . . .
He won't listen to me . . . when he sees me in mess hall
whispers kill . . . kill . . . kill ... I have lots of friends in K and
L tanks who believe me . . . but here in protective custody
snitch jacket really comes down on me . .
I promise to ask Rosemary get message to his lawyer but
visit so short ... I forget . . . feel bad . . . his life at stake . . .
NOLAN SITS UP ON BUNK SUDDENLY . . . PUTS DOWN
MANUSCRIPT . . . SHAKES HEAD . . .
WRITE DOWN YOU COMMENTS . . . MARK THE PLACES
... HE FROWNS NODS AND TAKES PENCIL . . . LIES BACK
DOWN WITH MANUSCRIPT ...
Later day . . . court call . . . fifty men crowd small basement
holdmgcell . . . change jail wraps for street clothes . . . cattle
penned together on floor suffocate smell of sweat feet for hour
before court bus come . . .
Talking to old hard cons and younghard gunsells . . . Tribal
swagger chief stuff . . .
They begin denouncing young beardless touslehair Tom
clenchfist . . . Snitch has to die ... I defend him . . . they run-
down list of indictments ...
NOLAN SITS UP AGAIN . . . PUTS MANUSCRIPT DOWN
121
. . . GETS UP . . . WALKS TO LOCKER FOR CIGARETTE . . .
I CANT READ THIS . . .
WHY . . . PLAYBOY EDITORS LIKE IT . . .
ITS NO GOOD . . . YOU WOULDN'T WRITE THAT NOW . . .
SOON AS SAID I SEE . . . NODHEAD LAUGHING . . .
YES . . . PLAYBOY SAW FLAW TOO. ... HE ASKED ME
TO ADD MY IMPRESSIONS ABOUT PRISON ... MY OWN
REACTIONS . . .
ANYTHING YOU WRITE NOW WILL BE HONEST AND
TRUE . . . YOU COULDN'T LET THIS BE PUBLISHED UNDER
YOUR NAME . . . UNLESS YOU BADLY NEED THE MONEY
. . . DEFENDING A SNITCH . . . REALLY . . .
WELL . . . FINISH READING IT . . . MAKE MARKS IN THE
MARGIN WHERE IT GRABS YOU WRONG . . . THEN WE TALK
ABOUT IT . . .
QUICK GLANCE . . . IMPERCEPTIBLE SHRUG . . . LIES
BACK DOWN TO READ ...
Back in tank that night I tell Tom . . . hear explain . . . bad
vibrations . . . deadly passions cramped in small metalcages
of countyjail . . .
But I was a twoperson Rosemarytimothy soul inside a one
person cell inside a sevenman sorrowful tier (including the
fearful Tom) inside a tank, inside a fiftyman module (including
Willie Madden and his gang) and love was the only way out
and here was a fellowhumanbeing trapped in hell of unbeliev-
able wickeddanger ...
Poor Tomlife . . . alcoholic stepfather beathim beathim
beathim . . . bloody child . . . unhappy . . . younger brother
prison doperap . . . they say Tom gave him up too . . . Orange-
country naughtyboy pumpgas and heroin . . lurchout with
bleeding arm to fuel cars . . . speedwired . . . stupidrunk on
reds . . . badboygunman . . . weak gasfumedowndope bluffing
kidtrip . . .
NOLAN SITS UP AGAIN . . . SHAKING HEAD . . . IT'S JUST
A FAKE STORY . . . THIS KID ISN'T A TRUE DOPEFIEND
AND HE'S NOT A DECENT ARMED ROBBER . . . YOU KNOW
TOO MUCH NOW TO WRITE SUCH A THING . . .
RIGHT ON . . . READ ON . . .
NOLAN LIES BACK AND CONTINUES READING . . .
Next week we both had court appearances but 4:00 am
speaker which called me didn't summon Tom . . .
In dressing tank rapping with Blank Panthers about Chicago
trial, Bill Kunstler, Mike Kennedy ... In cornercrowd darkbrow
tattooed man smile and wave over . . . talking about Tom . . .
122
tattoos eager persuade me Tom guiltysnitchdoom . . . snitches
must die . . .
Isn't he being made fallguy . . . didn't Willie Madden's
father and friend give him up?
My question puzzleface tattoo . . .
Hey ... I'm Willie Madden . . .
Lookstartle laugh . . .
You gonna get sentenced today?
I nod ...
That's good ... me too . . . we'll go up to prison together
on the Chino chain. You can hang out with us . . . you need
to run with gang in joint . . . we'll protect you . . . naw ... not
necessary . . . you got thousand kids in prison destroy anyone
who lay a hand on you . . .
What? psychedelic dopers aren't violent . . .
Wait until you see some of those speed freaks and redded-
out dudes . . .
Willie gang cluster round prospecting Chino . . . we'll get
him one of those nice young bitches to fuck . . . what was
name of that velvet-assed kid I was turning out . . .
Willie grintwist . . . pick a weakid . . . tellhim bendover . . .
if he don't . . . fire on him . . . smash . . . bloodrun . . . knock-
hlm down . . . kick him ... OK punk . . . you ready now . . .
take your fist . . . see . . . push it against his face ... OK little
softpunk . . . your tender velvet ass ready now? . . . pull his
pants down ... rip ... rub some soap on . . . punch him good
if he struggles . . . then punk him good . . . hear him scream
. . . after that he's your eager bitch . . . runs for you . . . when
he sees you coming he's ready . . . wicked grin . . . crooked
teeth . . . friendly smiling . . .
Sudden bull at gate . . . Lynn ... Is Thomas Lynn in there?
Electric silence . . .
They didn't call him down from N tank . . .
Well he should be here . . . he's on the list for court . . .
Bull trampleoff to bring Lynn . . .
Tension . . .
Corny melodrama B movie . . .
Suspense ... *
Longlong horror sequence soon to climax?
No one talking much . . . waiting . . . standing next to Willie
. . . gang surrounds . . .
Then bull unlocking barred gate . . . Tom Lynn in at recep-
tion committee . . . miserable . . . hesitant . . . gate slide open
. . . Tom waits . . . waits . . . waits . . . waits . . . walks one
pace forward . . . gate brush back clangshut behind him . . .
Still standing next to Willie . . . facing Tom . . . askinglook . . .
123
Defend? . . . defriend? . . . Libra scales balance . . . snitch
Tom? . . . mean Willie? . . . back a snitch . . . catch ajacket
. . . snitchfriend. inlaw . . . outlaw . . . ?
Tom stands hands by side . . . eyes down . . . helpless . . .
I leave Willie walk to Tom ... he saw all . . . tautface relax
. . . protection ... I joke him . . . back to Willie . . . call comes
to board bus . . .
I let Tom enter first . . double seats all gone? . . . gladly sit
single seat up front . . . thanks to be alone . . . Willie and gang
file past . . . glance back Tom sit alone . . . pariah ... un-
touchable ... I walk back to his seat . . . turn to continue rap
with Black Panthers . . . bus basement courthouse . . . Superior
Court defendants locked in large holdingroom . . . benches
round sides . . . bench in middle.
Tom and I sit together in middle . . . Willie and gang sit
behind us . . . silence . . .
I walk to Willie . . . Murder tension building . . . Venusguided
Libran cool it out . . .
Joke with Willie . . . return to Tom . . .
A few minutes later it struck . . . blurred movement in air
. . . sickening noise of flesh crunch . . . Tom's face blood
drenched . . . dazed . . . stand arms at side ... his glasses
smashed on floor . . . can't see . . . Willie dancing . . . fists
moving in attack ...
Danger . . . warnflash . . . stoodup moving between ...
Triangle transfixed . . . Tom swaying . . . Willie trembling
. . . Libra balancing . . .
I called out in forceful command from some past West Point
memory tape . . . GUARD!
As bull approached gave him peremptory order . . . "Guard,
take this man out of here . . . he's sick . . ." The guard almost
saluted . . .
NOLAN PUT MANUSCRIPT DOWN . . . SHAKING HEAD . . .
THIS REALLY IS TERRIBLE . . . YOU JUST CAN'T LET
THIS BE PRINTED . . .
VES. I KNOW . . . BUT READ IT THROUGH ANYWAY . . .
Tom led out ... I turned to face muttering wave of dis-
approval . . .
Man, mind your own business . . .
Motherfucking snitch . . .
Sat down shookup ... I had broken three jailhouse com-
mandments . . . not minded my own business . . . protected
snitch . . . called The Man . . . what happens now?
Long time silence broken . . . Black Panthers wave to join
them . . . tribal gesture . . .
124
Hey man . . . what's the baddest acid?
Baddest?
Yeah . . . baddest . . . you know ... the best . . .
After a while I walk over to Willie . . . squat in front of him
... He wiredup . . . legs jumping up and down . . .
Look him in eye . . .
Willie ... I'm not a judge ... I don't judge anyone here
... I believe in non-violence . . . that's my thing ... all the
judges are upstairs ... I want us all to be free . . . violence
threatens freedom.
Tribal code . . . that's how it is . . . message received?
Willie talk fast . . .
Man, you should never have done that . . . when you came
up I almost fired on you ... out of instinct . . . you can get
hurt that way ... I gotta kill a snitch . . . that's our way . . .
that's our thing, man . . .
Willie talking passion . . . repressed energy tremble strong
body . . .
Just then bull take me to court . . .
Sentencing takes a long time . . . cold anger of judge dis-
tracts me . . . blackrobe judge abandons constitution by refus-
ing me bail . . . holding me captive while guilt undecided . . .
provoking violence . . . calling bailiffs guns and clubs to lead
me away . . . inflicting pain in defense of his fears . . .
I kiss weeping Rosemary au revoir . . . lead me down to
courthouse basement . . . last prisoner to reach holding tank . . .
Prisoners cluster around sad story . . . cigarettes . . . sym-
pathy . . .
Back in jail dressing room Willie talking down Tom . . .
He's a weak, sniveling punk, man. A born snitch. I should
have known better, man. He caused me trouble before. We had
this place near Palm Springs, see. We never pulled any job
out of it, man. Just used it as a hideout. We had it loaded
with guns and heroin. One weekend there was this underaged
chick that the heat was looking for, and they came to the
door, and the house was loaded, man, and we wouldn't let
them in. They were looking for this chick, and we said get a
warrant, and they said they'd be back. So the other guys
covered the side doors, man, and I got a shotgun and two
pistols and waited in a room at the end of the front hallway,
and I told my old lady to answer the door, man, but when
the cops came the chick went to the door and gave herself
up. And she got busted, and our place was hot, man, and we
kept asking who knew the address here and the only one was
Tom Lynn.
So we piled the guns in the car, man, and drove back and
125
I was in the kitchen, man, and someone said, "Tom Lynn is
in the living room." And I went in and he said, "What's hap-
pening, Willie, I want to talk to you." And I said did you give
the heat our address and he said, "Yes, I did it for your own
good." And I started to come up to him, man, and he was
backing away holding his hands up in the air like this and
saying, "Now, wait a minute, Willie." Lennie kept saying, "Kill
the Motherfucking snitch," and my old lady was redded out
and said, "Blow the dude away!" So he backed right out the
front door, man, and I fired on him and he fell off the second
story porch and ran away . . .
He's a terrible liar and a weak slob, man. He'd never
make an armed robber in a thousand years. He's a coward,
man. He made one of my partners shoot a dude. They were
pulling a job and the storeowner, little guy, jumped on Frankie's
back and Tom threw down his gun and ran, man. Man, you
never leave your gun, and Frankie had to shoot the guy in
the leg and pick up Tom's gun.
Man, that Motherfucking snitch has got to die. He's a liar
about stuff, too. Pretending to have a junk habit, man. He came
over to my pad once and said, "Hey man, I'm strung out.
Gimme a fix." So I cooked a quarter spoon and he tied off and
hit up and, man, in five minutes he was dying . . . OD'd. Dying,
man! Everyone said throw his body in a car and we'll dump
him but I said no, and took him to the bathtub, man, and filled
it with cold water and got ice cubes and put them under his
balls and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and saved the
fucking dude's life, man. Ask him about that when you get
upstairs.
Pictures in my mind . . . Willie's mouth on Tom's . . . Tom's
mouth bleeding . . . Tom's father beating him up as a kid.
Why do you rob, Willie?
To support my habit, man. I gotta have my stuff.
You reallylike heroin?
Willie threw back shoulders . . . swell chest . . . smile proud.
Heroin is me! That's when I'm myself, man, when I'm on.
I'd rather fix than fuck a woman. Any time.
Willie turn to friend . . . Mike, you rather fix or fuck?
Mike slid mouth in honest evil sly smile.
Fuck, man, fuck. Push his fist up down masturbatory over
left arm vein.
Well, heroin is no crime. There shouldn't be a law against
heroin. It should be available on prescription for those need it.
Willie laughed. Yeah, man, make it legal.
If heroin were legal, you wouldn't need a lot of money to
126
support a habit. Then you wouldn't have to rob and carry a
gun and scare little old ladies in liquor stores.
You're right. But we'd still have to use violence against
snitches.
No, there'd be no snitches, Willie, because it's not illegal.
You wouldn't have to be violent at all.
He thought for a moment . . . You think you could persuade
me not to be violent?
Back to tank, Tom asleep. Got up for dinner, still punchy.
Nose swollen ... not broken. Talked bitter not trusting rattle-
snakes.
At lights out came to my cell . . . After he hit me, I was in
a daze. But I seem to remember someone saying. "Wait a
minute!" Did I say that or did you?
Next day sat with Tom in mess hall and Willie wave cheer-
fully.
See you on the bus for Chino.
That night, last jail night, very high. Tom came to cell . . .
I told him how much the drama with Willie had affected me.
It's some ancient powerful childhood family thing you and
Willie are playing out. The attack would have come sooner
or later and I'm glad that I was there to share it. You two are
very close. I want to protect you both.
I'm sorry you had to get mixed up in it.
I never saw him again.
The next morning shackled on barred window Bus to Chino
Big House.
Willie not on bus.
Six hours Chino steel casket loaded onto Vacaville chain
shackled to a forty-year-old Black nineteen of years in prison.
Brilliant, tenderloin, cynical heroin-addict thief sporting life
comedian. "If this bus were to have an accident and the guards
killed, I wouldn't escape. I'd pick their pockets, man, but I
wouldn't run." Thinks Cassius Clay dangerous maniac blowing
four million dollars.
At Vacaville fell in with cell group two Black pimps, Catholic
revolutionary, two Black addicts and four proud armed robbers.
Double bunk closely . . . eight men share twelve-by-twelve
livmg area ... I have never witnessed such affection, gener-
osity, wit and wisdom.
After a week chained again, driven airport, flown mysterious
smgle-engine Cessna down central valley over grapevines back
to Chino . . . locked In metal cage. Guard smiled as he walked
away. Your room-mate's going to be a surprise for you.
I wait at bars. After a while coming through crowd, carrying
127
his blankets, beard gone, long hair cut, looking tender young
vulnerable, was my son Jack. His face lit up.
We went out to yard ... sat in grass exchanging notes
happy together . . . looked up, saw at center blue-shirt ring,
Willie Madden. I shout wave. Willie smiles, gang swings around,
approaches ... I could hear Jack muttering in protest as I
got up to meet Willie ... I ask if he met Jack . . . "Sure, we
came up on the same chain from Santa Ana." He smile, but
Jack back turned to Willie.
Afterwards, Jack said that Willie run down story of Tom Lynn
... put me down . . . threatening rape Jack.
In audible click wheel of Karma moved again . . . Relentless
interweave everything . . . Every action in life, smallest deed,
requires its balance. Nothing escapes polar law. For every
neglect, we are neglected. For every good, we bettered. For
every cheat, we cheated. For every gift, we gifted. Inexorable
law of Karma ... not just behavioral or psychological . . .
weaving zig-zag genetic pattern.
Children reap what parents sow.
My moral heroics in Santa Ana threatens Jack's serenity at
Chino. My return to Chino, which I bitterly dislike, protects
Jack.
After Jack ship off in chains to another prison, Willie come
up to talk during yoga sessions In yard.
I tell him that I was pulled unwilling participant in love-hate
family quarrel between himself and Tom. Tom's father beat
him. What about your father?
Willie likes his mother. I used to go home when I wanted
to kick heroin. I tell my mother I had the flu and I lie in bed
for hours sweating and having chills and hot flashes. Every
bone would ache vomiting. Like the flu but a thousand times
worse. Diarrhea. Dry heaves. Just living death, man. Then
after a day I'd say the hell with it and split to score. Or if I
was too sick to split, man, I'd have my friends bring the stuff
to me.
One time I was sitting In the bathroom hitting up and I
forgot to lock the door and my mother walked in while I was
tied off and on. My family have a nice house and the bathroom
has all mirrors in it, you dig, man, and my mother saw all
these reflections of me fixing and she screamed and fainted
and I just got up and split. But I love my mother and I treat
her all right.
Tom Lynn loves his mother, too.
Why, that Motherfucker's lying, man. He treats his mother
like a dog, man. He tells her to go fuck herself.
128
What about your father? He turned you In?
Yeah. Doing that for years. The first time was when I
was 14. I came home one night really fucked on reds and my
mother was sitting on the couch looking unhappy and I said
what's wrong. And my older brother said, "Show him, Mom,"
and she turned her head and she had a black eye. I said,
"What happened?" And she said, "I hit It on the door," but
my brother said, "No, Dad hit her." So I waited by the front
door and when he came home drunk, he saw me and he fired
on me and I fired on him and and he went down and then I
kicked him unconscious. He called the cops and had my pro-
bation violated.
What does your father do, Willie?
Fire Captain. Makes good money, but drunk most of the
time. He really hates you, Leary.
What can we do for him?
Nothing. Let him alone. It's too late. He won't change.
What can we do for you?
Willie flushed and laughed. I'll never have anything to do
with guns. That's out. Maybe I'll become a pimp. Maybe I
can be your bodyguard.
I'm beginning to think that it's my fate to be your body-
guard. How long am I going to have to follow you around
pulling you out of trouble?
He laugh ... sit silent under sun.
Failure in love got us all in here. It's only love that can
get us out.
It's not too late, said Willie . . .
NOLAN GOT UP AND HANDED ME THE MANUSCRIPT
WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING ...
WELL?
IT'S A FAKE STORY . . . FICTION . . . AND YOU KNOW
WHERE FICTION'S AT ... IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH
THE WAY THINGS ARE IN PRISON AND THE WAY YOU
ARE NOW . . .
EVERYONE OUTSIDE LIKED IT . . .
SURE . . . BECAUSE ITS ROMANTIC* . . . HEROIC
JIMMY CAGNEY . . . PLASTIC . . . HUMPHREY BOGART
OF COURSE THEY LIKE IT OUTSIDE BECAUSE THEY ONLY
WANT TO HAVE THEIR ILLUSIONS CONFIRMED IT'S
JUST NOT FROM YOUR SOUL
I NOD AGREEMENT . . .
YOU'LL RIGHT IT . . . ITS NOT TOO LATE, SAID NOLAN
129
THE FOUR
THOUSAND
YEAR OLD
ROCK & ROLL
BAND:
A MEMORY
EXPERIENCED
ff Morocco was a
celestial dream
come true.^^
In May '69 the Supreme Court cut us loose on the thirty years
for a half ounce of grass beef. Rosemary and I were free
to leave the country for the first time in four years.
No bail. No jail. Set sail for Morocco, long hair cut to a cow-
boy trim.
In mixing sacrament for the trip I had accidentally taken
too much and sat primly In the Air Iberia waiting room at
JFK, rushing, sorting out James Bond paranoias, hoping that
Franco's agents would fail to penetrate my disguise. (I've been
busted three times in airports.)
Rosemary came back from the ticket window grinning.
"Cover's blown, baby. The Spanish ticket agent is a head. He
says they are honored to have us trip with Iberia."
The plane seemed old and dilapidated. We were sharing
the rear of tourist class with a few elderly and solemn Span-
iards who were obviously returning home to die. The red
carpet was worn and the flimsy tin seat-tray sagged to the
side. Two elderly men in uniform tottered by, painfully lugging
briefcases, gold teeth flashing forlorn smiles.
"They look like retired generals from the Spanish Civil War,"
I whispered.
"Hush," said Rosemary. "They are our pilots."
All of the eight passengers in tourist class sat in brooding
silence, staring forward, listening to sad Spanish tunes on
the P.A.
I was flashing telepathic. Picking up their peasant appre-
hensions.
Aging Castilian decay. A death trip for some. The dying
empire. I looked at Tiempo. Pictures of senile grandeur. The
Generalissimo and his staff. The old prince and his grand-
parents. The duke and duchess. The old Cardinal and his staff
of archibishops. No one under age of eighty.
"What have we got ourselves Into this trip? This plane is
like the second class bus from Malaga to Torremolinos. It will
never make the Atlantic."
Rosemary was pretending she didn't know me. "How much
did you drop? Really!"
At the very rear of the plane the jet engine blasted in our
ears a loud, rattling sound. The tail of the plane shuddered
and wrenched. It took SVz hours to wheeze down the runway
and takeoff.
The steward was husky, muscular. "He's a secret police
agent for sure," I whispered. The two stewardesses examined
us knowingly. We ordered champagne.
Rosemary was dozing when the steward formally asked me
131
to step to the rear of the plane.
Here we go!*
The stewardesses were waiting in the serving pantry.
"Senor Leary, we know who you are. Do you mind if we
ask you a question?"
"Ah," I said guardedly.
"Senor Leary, do you have any dope on you?"
I raised eyebrows and shook my head in shock.
"Dope? On me? Not a chancel" Defendant denies every-
thing.
Their faces fell in disappointment. "What a drag! Our friends
in Madrid will be disappointed. Well, at least give us your auto-
graph."
I started making surprised noises.
"But I thought Spain . . . Franco . . . Catholic Church . . .
secret police . . ." ,
They looked at each other and laughed.
"Young people are the same all over the world, Doctor
Timothy."
I waved Tiempo magazine. "But these pictures, the old
faces . . ."
"What about your Reader's Digest? You know, it's the same
with us. Young people like to get high and feel good and make
love."
Morocco was a celestial dream come true.
We had flown to this magical, pivotal kingdom for many
obvious reasons among them a curiosity to experience what
it is like to live in that country of the future, where alcohol is
for the most part prohibited and cannabis for the most part
conventionally accepted.
The experiment was successful. Morocco is the most psyche-
delic country in the western world.
Here is the crossroads of space and time.
*Note: In defense of my paranoia, let me explain that a month later, on
the return trip from Madrid to London, agents of a democratic, non-police
state. Great Britain, did wire ahead, we were met by a half dozen pom-
pous, incredibly stuffy bureaucratic types, each clutching in his left hand
two official rule books and a metal stamping machine, who did refuse
us entry, refuse us permission to fly to any other European country, who
went through the elaborate pretense of phoning the homes of Derek
Taylor, John Lennon, Mick dagger, Mike Pindar, announced with shrugged
shoulders that no one answered at any of their houses, and did escort us
under heavy guard, including two matrons, to a TWA plane bound for New
York.
132
Consider the geography. The northwest corner of Morocco
(and Africa) forms the southern pillar of the Gates of Hercules.
The Straits of Gibraltar. For centuries the farthest out outpost
of the Mediterranean world. Only the brave, the adventurous,
the spiritually propelled dared sail out beyond these limits
into the wild, uncharted western seas. Here was the line
separating the known from the promising dangerous unknown
western realm. Here, too, the precise dividing line between
Africa and Europe.
Standing on the parapet of the high castle in whidh we lived,
we looked north across the straits to Spain, rocky, barren
southern march of the mechanical Christian culture. And turn-
ing, we looked south to the Atlas mountains and the Sahara.
Northern Morocco is like northern California. Tangier, a
sleepy San Francisco.
Southern Morocco is like southwest California green oasis
valleys falling down to the desert.
Tangier, the international crossroad city, genetic trading
post. DNA exchange mart. Treasuring the best from each of
the nationalities that have held sway for brief periods an
English sense of tea-room solidity, Spanish rhythm, the tan
grace and sensuality of the Arabian invaders, French cuisine,
here and there a thin veneer of American-Japanese plastic,
the dark black ocean of jungle Congo Africa seeping through
the southern mountains, the Bedouin flair but beneath the
jewelled, tattered raiments left by passing conquerors the
seed, soul, blood, wisdom, and pride of an indigenous North
African tribal people who have absorbed, yielded, but never
submitted.
The Sephardic Jews, scholarly masters of our Middle Ages,
had passed through here too, going to and retreating from
Spain, and left their mark.
Tangier had been for centuries a free port, haven for wander-
ing exiles, political, spiritual, aesthetic. Today, less flamboyant
than Ibiza, more settled than Katmandu, the tradition remains.
From the Zocco Chico, a small plaza, ringed with sidewalk
cafes in the heart of the bustling Casbah, you can find a
guide who will take you to a venerable Afghani Sufi master,
a dancing boy cafe, a hashish dealer, a dervish brotherhood,
a bar to meet exactly the mirage partner your fantasy has
yearned for, a bazaar shop crammed with carved, woven,
engraved, gemmed treasures to furnish the incensed rooms of
your cannabis reveries.
Brion Gysin is the elegant orthodox bishop of this metro-
politan see. From his apartment a terrace opens out to bay
133
and hills across. Inside Brion dispenses blessings, visions,
communions, poetic sermons, and wicked gossip the world
of the occult Is his planet.
Gysin is one of the great hedonic mystic teachers. He has
played starring roles in the great spiritual movies of our times.
He led the rescue party that found and saved John Cooke
from the black magicians of Algeria and brought the great
crippled wizard back to the living.
He performed the rites and lefts in Eileen Garrett's temples
and absorbed the message of that fantastic medium.
It was Brion Gysin who could tell you anything you wanted
to know and tell you in witty, polished epigrams. It was Brion
Gysin who had tripped with everyone of the forty-nine voyagers
to the East, who had invented the Dream Machine (the most
sophisticated neuro-phenomenological device ever designed),
who developed, while carousing intoxicated with Burroughs
and the long-gone Joyce, the literary cut-up technique. It was
he, handsome, science-fiction, Don Juan Lord Brion of Git-
le-Coeur, spirit of the Naked Lunch.
Bill Burroughs was in town that week and would show up
at Brion's around sundown with a bottle of vodka drunk straight
and mixed with laconic lime, bittersweet slow-bubbling tonic
remarks, chilled to ice-cool precision. Bill Burroughs is our
lofty, aristocratic calculating machine, hyper-type-wrlter gentle-
pen-man who has overscene and seered everything, our hero-
in-action escaping through iron will and sardonic wit the padded
sells, the electric shock machines and surgical steel handcuffs
of the General Practitioners of Evil and returned in dignity to
provide the first-hand clinical descriptions of the needled,
flesh punctured galaxies he has in-habited and not In vein.
For no fee at all Bill would, with psycho-medical professional
precision, measure your residual emotions, if any, on a Hub-
bard Scientology meter. The aim of the game was not to show
any emotional reaction at all.
Brion Gysin was still showing emotions pain in his plaster-
cast foot, regret at parting, joy at coming, concern that his
book The Process, certainly one of the best published in years,
was not selling in America, delighted to give us directions to
the hill-top apartment where Paul Bowles presided over tea
and shared with us, alive, the deep intuitive sense of Morocco
which he taped in his great novels. Paul Bowles is another
one of the avuncular pioneers of the psychedelic age ahead
of his time.
Always bouncing in and out of Brion's was his blood brother
Hamri irrepressible, busy, puckish, volatile, laughing Mediter-
134
ranean trickster. At age fourteen Hamri had been the heaviest
smuggler in Morocco. Later he guided Brion south to the
desert into the vast silence of sand and it was Hamri who ini-
tiated Brion into the mystery brotherhood of Joujouka, the
mountaintop tribe, guardian of the Sacred Rites of Pan, home
of the oldest rock and roll bands in the world. Brion told us in
detail about the village. Inaccessible center of a religion, pre-
Islamic, pre-Roman, which preserved the ancient worship of
the piping shepherd God, lusty, goat-hoofed dancing Dionysius.
The village of the Master Musicians.
The business of the village was the tending of goats and
music. Brion would sit up in bed, flushed and high, turning us
on to the ancient tale. The tribe had three bands. The musi-
cians would jump on donkeys, instruments strapped to the
saddle, and trot for hours to a downland village fiesta, to a
wedding, to a celebration, to play for the general, or, on occa-
sion, for the Sultan himself.
They would receive barter in return. Their only cash crop
was sound and rhythm. And the dancers boy dancers, half-
girl, half male and Bou Jeloud dancers, giant hairy youths
covered with goatskin, leaping down from the hills lashing and
twirling with leafed branches, half-man, half-animal. Brian
Jones had been there and danced all night. We must go
Hamri would take us.
But there was so much else to do. We sat in the cushioned
alcove of the fanciest restaurant, guests of the Foreign Editor
of our largest news magazine, and ate the world's best food
and swayed to the oriental drumming and watched boys dance
the candle dance and then with a stately flourish the manager
of the restaurant produced the kif (Moroccan grass, finely
manicured, fine-cut with a keen chopping knife and packed
into small pipe bowls.) We all turned on publicly, and on the
way out the host's fourteen-year-old son muttered to us "I
don't want to spoil Dad's big psychedelic adventure, but that
kif IS nowhere. Do you want some dynamite hash?"
We spent days in the Casbah swimming through the wash
of people. Sturdy erect men in jellabah and fez. The tender
secret women, softly moving smooth brown bodies, veiled and
robed, the shopkeepers and artisans in their little shops smok-
mg kif, working, smiling. And the old men, white haired, serene
smoking kif, clear eyes watching, smiling, reciting the hundred
names of God.
And the children. Morocco has the highest percentage of
under-twelve-year-olds in the world, over sixty percent of the
country is round-faced, radiant-eyed, merry, playful
135
Occasionally running into the networl< of the Brotherhoods.
Brion Gysin had told us about them. Religious fraternities
throughout the land. Meetings held in garages, back yards,
living rooms. Each cult had its own rituals. And each one had
its own drummed beat. The music was the heart of it. You
could be a stranger in Casablanca walking down unfamiliar
streets and you would hear the drumming, your rhythm, that
reflexlvely flipped you out like the command of a hypnotic
master and you would walk entranced to the house, open the
gate and walk in to the back room and start to weave and
dance and then your brothers, strangers no longer, recogniz-
ing you (because the trance can't be put on), weave you into
the ritual.
Some just danced until they fainted. Others performed
stylized ordeals. Chanting and muttered prayers were part of
it. Some, the fabled fierce Jellalah, brandished knives and got
into mutilation trips.
They told us of the French tourist lady who was caught up
in the ceremony and jumped up flirtatiously to dance beware
lady the guidelines of sexual display are different here
violating taboo and four flipped-out Brothers seized her and
flung her in the air and as she fell four knives flashed and
before her body hit the ground well, the rest of the story
got into a surgical, anatomical, gory butcher-shop inventory.
Randy Weston, the jazz pianist, tall beautiful saint, took us
to a meeting. It was in the garage of a middle-class neighbor-
hood. About twenty men were seated. Drums were going. We
were welcomed with elaborate courtesy. Randy Weston is an
admired Moroccan Brother, the world-wide musician's union.
The kif pipe was passed. The heart-beat drums maintained
the blood-pressure. Short, breathy chants to the praise of Allah.
After a while a man in a business suit leaped up to dance
jerking spasmodically, trembling. You could feel the music
and the holy dope and the oneness of the group rip away
the mind and he was gone.
Two men stood on either side, watching for the moment.
Swiftly they strapped a rope around his waist, and as he fell,
they jerked the rope tight and he spun around and round like
a man doing an endless jack-knife dive until they lowered him
to the ground. He lay motionless for five minutes, and when
he stood up his face had that radiance of a man who was
coming off a pure acid high peak, wired into the universe
energy, smiling, cleansed, purified.
Randy had been to Joujouka too and the reverent way he
touted it left no doubts. We had to make the trip.
136
Hamri came for us in a cab early in the morning. We drove
south down the Atlantic coast past miles of wide sandy
beaches, deserted. Hamri sitting by the driver, the eternal
Gemini, pouring cascades of quicksilver, nervous, funny words
back to us.
We reached Azila, the first leg of our journey, before noon.
. Hamri discharged the driver and took us on foot around the
city. We saw little that reminded us of the 20th century. For
Hamri it was a family triumphant return to his home-time. He
joked with shopkeepers, grandly received the welcoming sa-
lutes and greetings. The market place was his dining table.
He selected snails from stall counter steamers, chose a piece
of fruit from a basket, showed us the house which, the hotel
where (it's run down now), the old man who, and the times
when.
At the end of a narrow alley we ducked into a windowless
room with bamboo mats on the floor and raised alcoves cut
into the walls.
We sat on cushions. The owner was a wiry, agile man with
a thin mustache. He brought us mint tea and a kif pipe.
There were a dozen men in the room, smoking kif, playing
cards, hanging out, drinking sweet tea, staying high. It was a
familiar head scene. You could feel the relaxed, good-humored
sweet unity in the room. We were with psychedelic brothers.
We were home.
Hamri explained the Moroccan way of getting high. "Ameri-
cans use that strong Mexican grass and get loaded like a
cocktail party, but of course quiet and beautiful instead of
noisy and jangly. We do it differently. Our kif is gentle. Like
fine rare wine compared to your tequila-marijuana. We light a
pipe first thing in the morning. Easy and gentle. Then another.
After five or so pipes you have slowly floated to the plateau
of warmth where you want to spend the day. Not bombed out.
A floating white cloudlike place where you can do your busi-
ness, see everything with a million eyes, gracefully arrange the
strings of your work. Life is beautiful."
As we were ready to go, Hamri played a card game with
the owner. The game was exciting. .They were playing for the
bill. The patrons leaned forward, grinning. The owner made a
miraculous comeback on the last hand and won by one point.
We were all glad and happy when we left.
"Now," announced Hamri with enthusiasm, "we eat and
drink."
We stopped at a stall where a man was broiling ground beef
hand-patted around skewers. We sat down inside a small room
137
with one large table. Six Moroccans, all in their twenties,
dressed in Western style, were drinking Scotch whisky and
warm coke.
They greeted us with the blowsy, loud jollity of any barroom.
We declined the whisky. Hamri bustled in triumphantly with
beer and heavy rolls of white bread. Then he bopped back
with a long tray containing twenty metal skewers giving off
the aroma of barbecue. Hamri sliced open a roll. He selected
seven skewers in his right hand, placed the meat on the bot-
tom of the roll, folded the top back with his thumb and, pinch-
ing the roll, pulled out the skewers with a flourish.
By the time we had finished three rolls, our companions had
killed the fifth of Scotch. They were noisily arguing, pounding
the table, shouting over each other's voices the universal
sad spectacle of crude juicers. They shouted affectionately as
we left and shook our hands with sweaty pressure.
Out in the street we asked Hamri what they were talking
about. "Business and politics."
We asked Hamri what they talked about at the kif tea house.
"No talk," said Hamri. "They just smile and think about the
greatness of God and the beauty of life. Me, I like to shout
and get drunk and fall down, and I like to get high. I like
everything," said Hamri laughing.
After haggling with the driver, Hamri piled us into an ancient
cab and we drove for an hour through vineyards and fruit
tree orchards. Rolling hills like Sonoma county. At one point
we pulled off the road and drove up to a military fort. Hamri
leaped out and disappeared. When he returned he said that
as a matter of courtesy he had told the commandant, a cousin
of his, that he was taking us up the mountain.
After a while, the macadam road turned to dirt and then
to a path. The car halted.
"From here we walk. Leave the luggage. The boys will come
for it."
We walked for a half hour along a valley. The hills were
soft and green. A farmer pruning trees saw us, waved and
shouted. Hamri shouted back. He wanted to know if we wanted
fruit or water and wished us the blessings of Allah.
Soon the path turned to the left and started up. It took about
an hour to reach the village.
First we heard the dogs. Then saw stone and mud huts.
Thatched roofs. When we reached the very top of the hill we
could look down in three directions to the valleys below. We
could see about ten houses. "There's the school room," said
Hamri, pointing to a one-storey building about the size of two
garages placed end to end.
138
As we walked toward it a group of men sitting under the
roofed porch rose and came to greet us. Their robes were old
and tattered but they walked tall and greeted us with regal
dignity.
We sat on cushions on the porch. Mint tea. They all unfolded
leather pouches, tassled and braided, containing pipe and kif.
We smoked and drank and I made polite conversation in Span-
ish. Hamri was a Napoleon painting, giving commands to the
young boys who giggled and ran to do his bidding.
The sun had set. Rosemary and I walked to the edge of the
hill and watched a few lights in houses down the valley. The
boy who had been assigned to watch waited at our side.
We were seated at the end of the schoolroom, cushioned in
Sultan style.
One by one the musicians came in, saluted us, embraced
Hamri and greeted each other with that easy familiarity that
only comes from living together forever.
From their robes they drew pouches containing their instru-
ments. Small two-penny bamboo flutes. Deep drums, leather
lashed with artistry. A very, very old man with a long, narrow
face and angelic smile carefully opened a fiddle case and
reverently pulled back the cloth wrappings. Holding a violin
up for our inspection, he told me in Spanish he had bought
it in a pawn shop in San Francisco, thirty years ago. He had
been a sailor then.
A stir at the door and a small man, somebody's grandfather,
stood in the middle of the room. He removed his cape with a
flourish and tossed it to a sixteen-year-old boy who followed
him. He came to us with ballet smoothness, bowed, spoke a
prayer, looked up with the grin of a burlesque comedian,
turned, lifting his foot and sweeping it over the heads of the
seated musicians and glided to his place with the rippling
erotic grace of a lioness. Berdou.
The narrow room beginning gently to Inflate. It was a dress-
ing room backstage at Fillmore East. Musicians before the gig.
Rapping. Joking. Relaxing. Messing idly with instruments.
The kif pipes were busy. Being filled. Lit. Smoked. Emptied.
A last puff reddens eye of bowl and pipe turned sideways
whooshing exhalation blowing glowing ash out. You could feel
room getting mellow high.
Musicians settling down along two long side walls. To our
left were flautists. Sitting against right wall, violin and drums.
To our front left squatted sixty-year-old Abdullah in worn
jellabah, close cropped grey hair. His huge hands almost con-
cealed small bamboo flute. He started aimless, exploratory
139
series of high tones. Thin old fellow on his left dipped in with
trial runs. Drums tuning up. Then Abdullah tooK off. High wire
of sound strung across room hooking heads together. Other
flutes skipped around it. Drums settled down to a solid beat.
Violin spun into crazy dance, and . . .
WHAM! They were off. Wailing! Desert winds shining across
sand-dunes. Shrill cry of muezzin calling dawn prayer from
minaret high above walled city. Flopping beat of camel trains.
Abdullah's beard-stubbled cheeks swollen with sound. Eyes
sparkling. Shepherds high on a mountaintop calling flocks.
Drummer bouncing carven stick off upper skin flicking small
twig against lower skin. Donkey trot, trot, trotting down shady
road. Violin calling from Berber mountaintop. Room undulating
to sinuous bellydance rhythms Tunisian. Water running down
narrow valleys of The Rif. Wind whistling through palm trees.
Shadowy Harem laughter, sighing, giggling. High pure voice
of muezzin calling praise of Allah. Thudding rush of footsteps
outside Bedouin tent. Keening wail of old women. How long,
Oh Lord! Toothless violinist spinning fiddle back and forth
against knee, grinning wickedly, foxing through dancehalls of
Alexandria, Viennese beer gardens, Sultan's wedding party,
funky seaport brothels. He had voyaged some, that slicky
fiddler! Pure, piercing thread of starlight on black night desert
and thunder drumming up Barbary coast to Bedouin beat.
Rangy jackals screeching at Sahara moon. Abdullah laid down
flute, lit kif pipe, smiled benignly while music whirled heavy
smoke around his grey head. He coolly piped clear sparkling
liquid splashing from fountains in Caliph's garden. (Islamic
music bubbles and ripples, watering thirsty soul of desert
people.) Ali laid down kif pipe, picked up fiddle, spinning fine
spider strand, thin sword blade wire of sound. Then came soft
perfumes. And sound of feasting. Brilliant garments. Enjoy-
ment of Houris, Hur Al Oyon, black-eyed daughters of para-
dise. Lost sheep bawled to nervous rustling flock. All their
music is prayer. Islam has no professional clergy. Every Fol-
lower of the Prophet is obliged to kneel five times a day, pray-
ing face to Mecca. Six hundred million voices chanting praise
of God. (Islam means submission.) Hear us, Allah, sang flutes.
Thy mercy is endless, sang violin. Thou art Creator of all
things, beat the drums. Thy goodness is wider than desert,
deeper than ocean. Thou wilt not forget we humble musicians
of Joujouka when thou distribute thy good things. We, poor
tattered musicians of Joujouka, chant thy praises more sweetly
if our flocks increase and our bellies full.
Music stopped. Desert silence. Hamri bounced over to us
beaming. He didn't have to ask. We didn't have to say a word.
140
The nine musicians were grinning and shining with radiance
that only connes when it has all come together music, people,
and God.
"Now we stop for while to eat," said Hamri.
At other end of long room a rude kitchen had been set up.
Kerosene burners. Steaming pots and kettles swiftly produced
shepherd's banquet.
After meal we were handed small round bush of dried stems
and taught how to break off sturdy fibrous tooth pick clean
our teeth. Mint tea all around and the show was ready to
proceed.
A rustle of subdued energy at door and fifteen-year-old
Mohammed (who had been sitting devotionally at Berdou's
feet) walked to center of the room. Transformed.
Music sidling into horny beat. Mohammed, dancing boy,
tossed black crew-cut curls and danced.
Ava were his hips and Marilyn her arms. Janice belting or
Gracie stalking or Shakti sliding or Rhadha swaying or Jane
Jane undulating? Broadway Joe stripped to waist whirling?
Raquel go-go or Brigit burlesque bouncing or Inger stripper
queen or Karen pom pom? Andalusian beauty fingers snapping
she came to us eyes sultry, nylon skin dewy sweating bikini
musk scent trailing throughout pulsy dreams. Serpentine he
swung silk veiled flesh quivering and drums beating up old
animal she-body rhythm. Faster and faster but no movement
of face. Fixed, enigmatic smile, stoned eyes far-away laughing,
faster and faster 'til flute wings buzzing out of bamboo hives,
pollen laden coiled kissing round her stamen-naked head,
higher and higher frantic abandon, semen dripping winged
anthers of sound, pure ribbons of sexuality, then one high note
spun down from Vega galaxy, accelerated through Milky Way,
shined off sun, bounced off Venus now become siren song of
flesh on earth, pierce mating drone.
And then Mohammed Ali fixed in trance belting out bumping
muscular Nijinsky, Cassius Clay, biceptual, trisexual, All-star,
transerotic power fuck, Adonis swathed in Venus veils.
A bow. Soft wave. One last enigmatic shrug. He was gone.
Everyone in room softly breathing. Toking kif. Relaxing after
the ball. Smiling wisely. One flute kept post-coital thread of
touch going. Lazy, Instrumental ribbon gentle back-rubbing
ripple catching one note and then keeping constant flow of
air through nose and out flute without break for breath. On
and on.
Then old fiddler picks It up, obligates, virtuoso runs, opera-
tic trills, concert-hall flourishes, eyes closed, flipping old hand-
141
polished, skin-rubbed ancient beloved instrument back and
forth, sailing into Russian impassionato, sweet sticky German
candy waves of baroque, churrigesque sound.
And from beyond him wavering voice of Berdou breaking
with La Scala arabeques, ballooned to quavering falsetto,
tumbling down scale in comic coughs and mezzo-soprano
screams. We flipped surprise then caught his clown laughter,
mocking pomposity Western violin and everyone laughed at
oriental Arab joke that wily old satire queen Berdou poked at
grim European self-Indulgent Christian sincerity.* And old
fiddler rolling eyes, waving insect antennae trapped in helpless
molasses. Wizened yogi clown aping, mimicking, burlesquing.
Crowd roaring. Fiddler sawing resignedly once again, for
thousandth time Laurel 'n Hardy butt of ancient routine.
Then the whole show clicked up to higher level. We began
to dig the subtle play. Here we have the original rock and roll
group. The one and only lonely heart's club band of Joujouka.
Four thousand years ago shepherds tending sheep on moun-
tain top moving along ridges to fresh pasture land. Long weeks
away from home and family. Lonely windy days calling sheep
with piping trills and lonely nights around camp fire, high on
mountain marijuana, pressing away solitary darkness with soft
flute songs. This is high land of The Great God Pan, horny,
cloven-hooved spirit of animal sexuality. All day watching
dainty, wiggling, mincing trot of thin-legged saucy, soft, furry,
secret, cuddly females, and insistent red-butting rut-lust of
ram thrust. The arcane sly fraternity of animal husbandry,
tender lamb rearing, kid-wifery. Aweful blind spurting compul-
sion of informal experimental breeding stations, forbidden ter-
rible mysterious pull of interspecies lechery. Irrepressible
genetic sexy barnyard fantasies of interspecies coupling. Eerie
offspring. Illegimate hallucinatory mythic bastards. Mermaids.
Sphinxes. Centaurs. Dogfaced divinities. Catbodied Nile queens.
Winged angels fallen. Two armed, fat-bellied elephant-headed
lecherous avatars. Horned fur devils. Incubi and succubi to
cover our dream-haunted hungry bodies in the still of herds-
man night, the thousand half-man-animal-half-woman, sexual
hashish flesh mixtures lascivious temptations of our DNA
chastity. Beastly. Beastly Beast. Great Beast.
All seeing, time blows foregiving breath over millenium
lonely mountain tops where sheep sigh and sheepskin drums
beat up our blood and pipes play and husky, muscular, hairy
big-boned youths, half-human, half-animal leap up running
* Let's face it. The violin is a pretentious, arthropod, European instrument,
inevitably comic to the natural, lycergic eye.
142
madly to murmuring midnite flock and slender, smooth-skinned,
beardless boys stand up shyly begin to dance, here, dear boy
take turban veil while knowing fingers snap and tender youth
lilts into twisting bisexual ballet and Great God Drunken
Dionysius twists his mustache, old stoned eyes twinkling, and
laughs.
Here is religious intoxication which pre-dates the Vedic
soma-psychedelic scholars, ten thousand generations older
than Buddha and Christ. Oldest blood-seed ritual. Fierce, un-
stoppable unity dance of life, ancient, pre-human mutational
congregation, fertility worship, source of totem, shameful seed
of evolution.*
I remember the time that I was wandering high on acid up the desert
mountain stream that tiny Jerry showed me. I got ahead higher than the
rest and when they came down to the jeep they said that the last they
saw of me was sitting on a rock drumming message to rattlesnal<e god
and Calvin said he would wait with two mules to take me back And
hours later after Calvin and I found the waterfall and fell on our knees
in prayer, and crawled through the cave, and sat by the gentle stream that
flowed through high green pasture, when we reached the mules I said
tentatively, "This mule has never been ridden before today, has if?" And
Calvin shook his black beard and laughed and said, "That's all right, you
just have to make friends with her." And he lifted the tail of the huge
animal and shoved his hand eye-level between her legs and moved it
softly, caressing. Then he said. "You do it." And I looked up the long
powerful legs, as thick as my shoulders and gaped at the dark, shadow
crease where legs joined and steamy smell of mule bathed me and I
gaped and Calvin said, "Go ahead. Run your hand up along her legs. She'll
dig It." And I put my hand on inside of her left leg and moved it up, fear-
fully, and felt the rounded muscle fearful with horse power and slip up
against the moist yielding smooth flesh to her crotch and the one ton
creature shifted her weight slightly and breathed softly and I slid my hand
down hairless leg, palm slippery and up and shyly looked at Calvin who
watched me grinning, and she arched up her head and settled her four
legs luxuriously in the sand. Hail Mare full of race. The Lord is with thee'
Blessed is the strange fruit of thy womb. When I stopped and pulled
my hand out Calvin said, shyly, "I learned a lot talking to these old cow-
boys around here. They say there's only one sure way to master your
animals and that's the way you master your woman and they have all
sorts of jokes about climbing up on boxes and so on." I was still holding
my hand out at my side and felt I had just been initiated into some special
mountain-man secret, powerful and funny. We rode back five miles on the
road and the mule was nervous and I got nervous when I realized that
she knew less about being ridden than I did about riding and once when
she bolted I drove her into some sage and while she panted jumpily I
held my right hand down to her nose and then rubbed it on her huge
buttock and reined her back on the road and plodded on in twilight watch-
ing stars pop out and remembering Joujouka.
143
For over one hundred fifty generations these villagers have
herded sheep and played shepherd music and worshipped
Pan and watched their stocky adolescents rush out wildly to
the flocks at night and their slender boys dancing veiled
remembering their own youth. By age three they knew which
boys would play the part of hairy, goat-skinned Bou Jeloud
and which boys would dance veiled. The kids learned to play
instruments as they learned to talk. The small tribe isolated
on the mountain divided into three musical groups. At any
given time one or more were out on the road. We watched
one group leaving next dawn, huddled on donkeys, drums
lashed to the side. Ride all day to wedding or celebration or
feast of rich man or, in old days, the Sultan. Trot into town at
sunset. Sit around cutting and smoking kif and when the
fiesta was ready play all night. Talk about hip. Four thousand
years of canny old show-biz wisdom. Performer lore. Thirty
years of being John-Paul-George-Ringo night after night get-
ting high together in Liverpool bars like their fathers and grand-
fathers did before them, until the routine got so natural it was
like breathing together and watching the young boys grow up
and get married. Sitting around stoned digging each new
scene, digging the gossip and the action and the interplay of
each village. Improvising, playing out the old classic slapstick
comic routines.
We were turned on to Berdou now and he took us on a
drum solo, at first seated and then leaping to feet still drum-
ming started a bisexual ballet dancing with The Boy Moham-
med, using drum as prop became old woman carrying water,
young girl swaying through market with basket of flowers,
farm girl stuffing corn in bag, and then with jellabah crook-
armed across his veiled face old crone limping, and then
with a sultry burst of boyhood belting out a Minsky grind, and
dancing towards Rosemary, his arms beckoning her to dance.
Rosemary blushed and gracefully refused. It was an all-male
show and Rosemary admitted as honorary man for the night.
But Berdou came back beckoning and Rosemary palms to-
gether Hindu-style bowed and refused, but some subtle bridge
of communion was building and when he came dancing back
the third time he knew and we knew that it was right for her
to get up and swirl her veil behind her hips, holding it low
and dancing with it, oh so young girl timidly following him to
the center of the room and the musicians swept in with joyous
affirmation and worship of her maiden Godhood and the beat
picked up and I was grinning proudly and my beautiful woman
turned and danced to the drums and whirled and danced to
144
the pipes and turned and danced to delighted onlookers at the
end of room. Knowing her so well, I sensed her holding in so
delicately, because this was no place for rose-in-mouth Rita
Hayworth Hollywood female histrionics, and she kept perfect
reserved maiden hesitation but at one point, slipped her cover
for just one perceptible second and showed them a laughing
glimpse of her ancient, familiar, Aphrodite power, a single,
simple, perfectly controlled body shot a block-buster flash of
full woman power that blew the roof off the room and then
dropping her head and smiling she became girl again but
everyone saw it and felt the ancient energy in classic form and
a murmur of appreciation and smiling glances round the room
and she danced backwards, laughing a little and pretending to
trip, and the most beautiful graceful woman in the world fell
back in my lap.
With inaudible click we had all come together and from
there on it was a reunion of old psychedelic Brothers and
the music slid off from Rosemary's sensuality to a comic stut-
ter and Berdou staggered into a Charlie Chaplin, drum as
camera on tripod, taking our picture, squinting, knocking it
over, catching It, pointing it wrong, scratching his head, mock-
ing native bewilderment at unfamiliar European gadget, essence
peasant joke against blind colonial machine, and then with
flourish pulling out invisible picture, I took It and we exclaimed
and autographed it and Berdou duck-walked over and tacked
it to wall and then became an Englishman pouring whiskey
drunkenly urging us to drink and coming on with western
boozy friend-of-the-native affability, all pantomine, and faggot
lurching futilely after boy Abdullah and English lady's tea
party and tourists in market place and then tourist in brothel
playing all the parts and then Arab peasant with donkey, page
after page of Moroccan picture album, complete master of
scene, swaggering, prancing, posing. The Boy Mohammed sit-
ting quietly worshipping teacher. And music picked up and
Hamri danced and thin drummer danced giving us memory
snapshots of his own dancing-boy past and then old Abdullah
himself rose to murmur of surprised approval, (we're really
getting it. on tonight) and started a shy shuffling dance, dig-
nified as befit his years, grinning from 'corner of mouth,
restrained but still in poised rhythm.
Then at some invisible signal music stopped. Hushed silence,
meditative. Heads down. Waiting. Berdou started talking in a
low voice. We could not understand the Arabic but tone was
solemn. Realize he was praying. Talking in serious conversa-
tional style to God as though He were In the room. Realized
145
with start that He was in the room. Everyone leaning forward
nodding as Berdou explained to Him our troubles, our hopes,
our fears. Talking fast, so much to say. Voice rising and fall-
ing, punctuated with sighs. This is important. Oh Great Merciful
One. And hear this. And please do not forget. We were in a
marooned space ship and our captain was radioing out the
message. No time to lose, Almighty One. Listen carefully we
beseech You to every detail. He prayed for the village. For
the sick ones. For the babies. For the family whose son had
run away to Tetuan. For the herds and the crops. For serenity.
For the sinners. For some improvement in the economic situa-
tion because now that the villages had electricity and radios
they no longer called upon the musicians from Joujouka and
You, All Wise One, know that our only means of barter is our
music which we offer in praise of You. And the rich men hire
European bands from Tangier and Casablanca and no longer
wish to hear our ancient music. And we have no medicine.
Everyone was nodding and murmuring agreement. And we
wish to keep our children here in the pure mountains but
unless You help us. All Compassionate One, we cannot keep
them here hungry and they will go to the city and forget their
purity. And turning to us he prayed for Hamri, beloved cousin
who had raised the dirhans to pay for the assembly hall and
for Brion Gysin, the European who had become brother, and
for the fine American and his beautiful wife who dances so
graceful may they receive the blessings. As he prayed he
flipped out in trance and was bobbing up and down and
pounding his right hand in his left for emphasis and all the
people were bobbing with him and we were too.
He finished and we all sank back against the cushions with
a sense of perfect peace. I leaned forward and asked Hamri
to ask him to pray for a very special personal favor which
Rosemary and I wished God to consider that we would be
blessed with children and his face exploded in pleasure and
the musicians shook their heads in happy support and then
he started to pray leaning towards us and how he prayed! With
every fibre in his thin wiry body and great love was in the room.
Hamri stood and beckoned us to the door. Everyone filed
out to the porch of the meeting room and nine musicians
squatted against the wall and pulled out from wondrously
patched bags wooden horns and screwed in reed mouthpieces
and began tuning up the raitas, an instrument with a high rasp-
ing spine chilling vibration. Jellabahs over their heads this band
of tiny elves piped up one note and kept it going, all nine,
louder and louder until it was a laser beam zeroed in our brains
146
and there was that moment of near panic when it was too
much sound, too loud, too piercing membrane stretching and
there was nothing to do but open up and go with it, thin razor
sharp scalpel of energy searching our brain. I had the feeling
that if I tried to struggle it would sear and scar my cerebral
cortex, but relaxing it became a healing shower zipping heads
clean of any hang-up.
Suddenly a wild shouting behind us and leaping down the
hill to the fire was an eight-foot-tall monster, hairy arms and
chest, hairy legs, huge bare human feet, brimmed hat crumpled
over its hidden face. One great bound took him over the
fire and down to musicians. He was flailing away with thin
branches of willow leaves leaping, twisting, whirling wolf rush,
gorilla lunge, legs apart, pelted arms waving, body convulsed
In rhythmic trembling, energy racking and cording his muscles,
sweat pouring and the raitas screamed and from the shadows
floated Mohammed, silken veils trailing up to the beast and
colliding like extraplanetary mutant creatures they danced
copulatory, the one beautiful boy-girl and the other man-ani-
mal and with drumming of hooves and rush of wind Pan
Dionysius swept down from the mountain and tongues of fire-
light and the energy of God struck down thunderbolts, phallic
mushrooms butted up from damp earth and flower yonis grew
on shadowed hillside and my arms went around Rosemary and
we were made one divine animal soul and rockets burst spurt-
ing color flame and radiant light dazzled our eyes and Bou
Jeloud horned God of herd pasture and vine and root and
seed whirled and leaped into the fire and disappeared.
We slept that night blankets on the wooden floor, slept in
each other arms until sunlight filtered through the closed
wooden shutter. Hamri knocked and entered. Soon eggs sput-
tering on the burners and tea and goats' milk and fresh fruit.
We moved to the porch where sitting we received in loving
dignity our music brothers. Each one came softly, robed,
carrying old patched pouch from which they took their pipe
and kif knives. Old AM squatted over board and started cutting,
slicing, chopping with careful precision, and we smoked. Then
we were initiated into the musicians' union, presented with
bamboo flutes and drums and carved sticks and raitas and
embraced. "We'll have to wire Rolling Stone that we've got
our union cards."
We were brought Moroccan mountain blankets, white, fine,
lacy table-cloth-thin but warmer than fur.
Our instruments were lashed onto mules and we were lifted
147
up to the saddles, huge, luxurious sideways easy-chairs from
which we leaned down farewells to our brothers clustered
around smiling with great love and touching hands to forehead
and heart. This is your village. You are tribal brothers. Yet
this is our village and we are your brothers.
The trip down the mountain. Sitting stoned on soft lounge
chairs softly jogged by caressing sea motion of mule we gazed
out across the valley. Running beside me was a grinning bare-
foot kid. Switching the mule, running to the orchard to gather
fresh figs, whopping it up and I realized with a shock that
this tousledhair Huck Finn was Mohammed, Apollo-Venus of
our night of magic. And the sturdy Tom Sawyer, trotting bare-
foot by Hamri's donkey, was Bou Jeloud.
Rosemary turned back and smiled and we came back
blessed and renewed by the love of God and His Servants, the
Musicians of Joujouka.
148
STAR TRIP
FORRO
ff And Venus was our
guiding light and
all that we beheld
was love.^^
We unrolled time tape winter sixty nine high, high in moun-
tain desert, touching clear cool blue sky so close to sun.
Lazy sensual morning sunshine bed massaging smooth warm
lying lawn grass yoga fresh fruit reading climbing peaks where
Father Hawk glidly floats across top ride calm king of moun-
tain. Watching sun redden dusky sky and tiny lights of brother
car moving slowly up valley road. Chill clean night air building
fire, get high. Meditation drumming softly. Rosemary softly
cooking dinner. Candles and the fleecy soft sleeping bag.
Water spring from aspen grove high above us pure ice
crystal. Electric generator cranked by hand bumped current
ninety minutes before steaming up. Two albums are the music
ration.
Once a week, as God suggests, we offer twenty-four hours
to the visionary trip. Before fasting, all day purification house
and mind. At sunset Rosemary place sacra-mental tabs in my
mouth and I place come-union tabs in her mouth eyes pledg-
ing love we part this plane.
Candle light dancing Amitaba Buddha, room filled jewel
warmth. Yoga body warm river fire. Reading sacred books.
Peace. Union.
At some space-time for music float to power-house crank up
generator and place one record on the turn-table. Our winter
guru Jimi Hendrix.
Well, someone stepped from the crowd
He was nineteen miles high.
He shouts "We're tired and disgusted; so we paint
red through the sky."
I say, "The truth is straight ahead
So don't burn yourselves instead.
Tryin' to learn Instead of burn
Hear what I say."
So I finally rode away
But I'll never forget that day
'Cause when I reached the valley
I looked down 'cross the way
A giant boat from space
Landed with eerie grace
And came and takin' all the dead away.
Sooner or greater Rosemary's announcement that flying
saucers have arrived. Lying sprawled on bed, her nose pressed
to window scans southern sky. Oh beloved look. See it flash-
ing colors, rainbows, see the purple flames pulsing celestial
sea anemone. Coming to her sight, sliding along smooth ivory
151
soft arm, Oh yes, it's come. What do we do now? Be pure.
Wait. Hope. Om. We are here. Will you take us now? We are
ready. Love you. Well come. Wise outer space father and
mother humming energy homing power.
Oh there's one for sure. It's moving toward us whooshing
speed of life, green-blue eye God.
Venus. Just a planet sprung from foam of sea. Eccentricity of
her orbit smaller than any heavenly body. Star wife star mother
star woman graceful shines most brilliant body In the sky.
Planet of love. (Libra loves Taurus.) At her inferior conjunction
she approaches closer than any other planet. Closer love.
Oh did you plan It this way? Evening star. Only such sacrifices
as flowers, incense made to Astarte. She approaches closer.
She comes at twilight feathering dove swan down myrtle,
poppy, rose light. Heavenly body. Perfect love.
JimI Hendrix and sky black jewel ocean of stars twinkling.
Oh come, this time for sure It's one. There! Stroboscope flash-
ing signals nearer, nearer, coming down valley so close. Must
be a helicopter undulating up and down. Closer and closer.
What does it mean? Oh tell me husband, lover, father, brother,
son, I frighten strong. What does it mean?
New Life. New Life beloved. From infinite trillion vacuum
distance of far-flung galaxies It comes to us. New Life.
Next morning Rosemary is calm practical earthly wise.
My love you must learn astronomy. TO ACQUIRE SOME
APPRECIATION OF THE MEANING OF THE SKIES Yes. Eyes
longtime wanted. Remember at Millbrook lying on the soft
rotting shingles of bowling alley roof summer nights asking
who knows the stars. ONE MUST MAKE THE FRIENDSHIP OF
THE STARS. Hundred pilgrims, saddhus, magi, magicians come
but not one knows the stars. WATCH THEIR MAJESTIC MARCH
THROUGH THE NIGHT Why not? AND THE SLOW SEASONAL
ADVANCE OF CONSTELLATION AFTER CONSTELLATION Be-
cause we would never know if a flying saucer came unless we
chart learn. Heavens above FROM EAST TO WEST THROUGH-
OUT THE YEAR. When heaven ship comes, we must be able
to spot it because no star is supposed to be there. TO KNOW
ORION, SIRIUS, TAURUS AND THE PLEIADES Find old Jackie
Leary high school star book. Clocking stars by fist and com-
pass. Reading by orange firelight. Locate date and hour m
table. Turn to correct page and clock the stars with fist and
compass. SIRUS: 6 o'clock, four fists. AS LEADING ROLES
OF THE WINTER SKY. Rush out cottage, shouting 6 o'clock
four fists. 6 o'clock, face direct south, hold arm directly front of
eye and sight four fists angle up. Fist covers bright bright star.
152
SIRIUS! OR LYRA, WITH ITS VEGA, CYGNUS, WITH ITS
NORTHERN CROSS introduce Rosemary Sirius. Consult list:
ARCTURUS, 3 o'clock, three fists. SCORPIO, AND ANTARES
AS THE QUIETER LEADERS OF THE SOFTER SKIES OF
SUMMER. Rush out, face east move three fists to heavy yellow
gleaming orb. ARCTURUS.
Then the Zodiac.
There truly is a belt of constellations high In southern sky.
GIVES ONE A SENSE OF KINSHIP WITH NATURE WHICH
MAKES A KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR MOVEMENTS Stately red
Taurus with cow-head horns triangle ruby Aldebaran. And
Castor-Pollux ambi-sexual twins, and Leo shaped like question
mark punctuated by majestic Regulus. MORE SIGNIFICANT
AND EVEN LIFE And glorious twisted, jeweled Scorpius, bale-
ful, enticing fiery red Antares A LITTLE MORE WORTH WHILE.
Astrology is not musty-book game fierce intellectual occult
women and pasty-faced ministerial pedants. Your sun-sign
shines above you In the jeweled belt six month of the year.
And when your sun-sign rests behind the daily hills, hers is
night there. All your friends wheel in stately rhythm along belt
and moon and sun follow same narrow path across the sky
and along the perfectly predictable roadway of chronology
wander planets.
What is that very bright star doing in the middle of Scorpio?
Where? Right there next to Antares. Rush to house to check.
MARS: 8 o'clock four fists. Of course. That bright bright star
intruding in familiar form of Scorpio Is MARS. Mars is in
Scorpio. See it.
Eye see Jupiter in Leo; book says in Cancer. That's because
the books report the situation two thousand years ago. In the
last two millennia earth wobble off thirty degrees. Which do
you believe? Aristotle says a horse has twenty-four teeth but
I count thirty-two. Believe which ever makes you feel better
and helps you more.
Stand looking south. Imagine circle of the Zodiac. Got it?
Now the sun is down there to the right, out of sight, below
the horizon. Right. And the moon is up there, and Venus just
setting. What you are looking at is the horoscope chart of the
person who Is born this very minute. Astrology is not a paper
and pencil game. It's a jewel-encrusted clear night, cool pure
air in lungs, see them, touch them, feel their vibration living
observational psychedelic seeance.
So start star yoga. Simple ritual. Everynight just after sunset
walk outside and watch for nightly television show. Old friends
appear as certain celestial clock works. Each night wide-span-
153
ning panorama shifts about one degree. Each month a new
Zodiac constellation drops over the western sunset hill. Good-
bye Gemini. Eastern greetings Sagittarius.
The initiation period is one year. One quick trip around the
sun and then the show begins again. High Gemini.
As we travel around the globe of earth we find the angle
different and realize how we have traveled. The stars become
compass and clock. Driving nights we cite direction from the
heavens. We tell time by glancing watchly above. Belong to
the oldest fraternity of men who look up. Babylonian priests.
Libyan shepherds. Carthaginian sailors.
Starry heavens become familiar as your garden. Now we
know when if a stranger comes to visit. What is that brilliant
intruder sliding through Cassiopeia? Russian satellite. What
is that diamond rivalling Vega? The midnite TWA flight from
L.A.
Just at sunset Rosemary puts on fleece lined jacket and
we walk hand-in-hand down valley. As dusk falls we turn back.
First comes Mars over western there. Where is it? Pointing
finger creates glitter jewel. There! Now right above we create
Jupiter. Point to right place and oh there, the steady white
light suddenly flashes into view. In five minutes we'll create a
star over there and call it Sirius. We walk slowly back pointing
to the blue-pink-purpling sky and literally create the heavenly
constellations.
We unrolled the time tape winter sixty nine high, high in
mountain desert. The darkness night without form cradled hold-
ing within the immense void arms intwined and lazy sensual
sunshine we called morning. And there were lights in the
firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night and
to be signs for seasons and for days and years. And Venus was
our guiding light and all that we beheld was love.
154
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'^Dr. Leary's imprisonment
is an act of insult to Ikience,
Liberty, Common dense.
Freedom, Academy, Fhilos-
opiiy. Medicine, Psychol-
ogy as an Art, and Poetry
as a tradition of human
mind-vision." Allen Giisberg
On the morning of September 13, 1970,
Timothy Leary escaped from the California
prison where he had served seven months
of a possible ten-year sentence for pos-
session of marijuana. This book is Timothy
Leary's account of that prison experience,
written as he was living through it. It is a
strikingly original work, in which dramatic
narrative and spiritual reflection, humor
and anger, intense emotion and philoso-
phical detachment are inextricably inter-
mingled.
'^What's going on in his head?" Allen Gins-
berg asked himself. And he answered:
"Well, jail's honed him down to rib & soul."
These are "rib & soul" notes, honed down
to the bitter truth.
Photo: United Press International Printed In U.S.A.